Dream Within the Dream
by scathach124
Summary: The Crawley sisters, Tom Branson, and Matthew Crawley, are part of an espionage business built around entering dreams to steal corporate secrets. Reuniting after going on the run, they are presented with a difficult task that puts their lives – and their hearts – on the line. Written for STEAMM Day 2016. Inspired by "Inception"
1. Prologue

_Hello readers! Here is my contribution to STEAMM day 2016 (which has actually been in the works for a couple of weeks), which as some of you may know celebrates the Sybil x Tom, Edith x Anthony, and Mary x Matthew ships that were cruelly struck down in that cursed season._

 _Inception is one of my favourite films and I loved the universe that Christopher Nolan created. When I rewatched it over the summer I found myself thinking what it would be like as a STEAMM-centered fic ... and so I got to writing this! Now, I'm using a lot of the elements from the movie such as extraction, lucid dreaming, projections, etc. but I want to give my own spin on things, so some elements may not be exactly the same as the are in the movie. And some things from the movie aren't entirely explained or explained very well, so please don't ask me this or that about that, because even I don't know – I'm just trying to make things as understandable as possible. So, there will be similarities in story elements/character traits/perhaps storylines, but this is not meant to be a crossover._

 _I appreciate any and all feedback or thoughts you have on this, so thank you to everyone who takes the time to write a review. And for those of you who remember/read my last big STEAMM fic ... I WILL NOT REPEAT WHAT I DID THE LAST TIME! I PROMISE! PLEASE DO NOT RUN AWAY!_

* * *

 _ **Dream Within the Dream**_

Prologue

"Over here! I've got someone!"

Mary's eyes flickered open at the shout, but she didn't move. She didn't lift her face from the river bank, even though she wanted to spit the salty water from her mouth or give her cheeks relief from the sharp-edged rocks pressing into her skin. Another ripple of cold water cascaded over her legs, dampening her trousers again.

How long she had been lying there, she couldn't know. An hour … half a day … a whole day? She felt weak, and her stomach from hunger. She wanted to stay there on the rough bank, fall into a deep sleep again. What was it like to sleep? It had been a long time since she had lay down in a bed, closed her eyes, and let dreams simply wash over her mind, meaningless and eventually to be forgotten.

She didn't move a muscle even as someone crouched down beside her, and something prodded her spine. A moment later, someone else walked down the bank, rocks crunching under heavy boots. "Did you check her?"

"Not yet. I can't get to her jacket pockets."

An irritated grumble from one of the men. "C'mon then."

Mary flinched, but she didn't fight or say a word as the two men pulled her by her arm and shoulder onto her back. She lay completely still as one bent down and reached into her jacket, rummaging his hands through the pockets. There wasn't any sunlight here – she couldn't feel any warmth on her gritty face. The undulations of the river kept washing over her legs, and she let out a shiver, her first movement since the two men had found her.

"Here, take this." The man going through her pockets pulled something heavy from her left side. Her Beretta, Mary realized. She wasn't upset at having it taken away from her – if things worked in her favour, then she'd get it back.

And hopefully, she might be able to use it.

The man went through her other pocket, finding exactly what Mary knew what was in it. "What the hell's this?" he said as he pulled it out. "Ratty old thing, isn't it?"

"That supposed to be a dog or something?" the other man said.

"Doesn't matter. Let's bring her in."

Mary groaned as she was lifted up off the ground, both men grasping her arms. She didn't have the energy to find her footing and walk alongside with them, so she let herself be dragged across the bank, her shoes tearing from the rocks and debris.

She opened her eyes just a crack, and saw something familiar run across the river – Waterloo Bridge, or a rather convincing reproduction. And St. Paul's Cathedral in the distance – it looked much like the real thing, but how did it look up close? She didn't think she'd get a change to judge it for herself, but she supposed it was quite close to the real thing.

She kept her eyes open as she was carried up a set of metal stairs and across a pavement, but her eyes closed again and she let herself be dragged off to who knows where. When they finally stopped, one of the men let go of her arm and knocked on a door, which was opened. Immediately he took hold of her again and pulled her inside, her toes knocking against the sill. From the sudden smoothness that her feet brushed against, she figured she was in the foyer of a house now – one that might not be too spacious but nevertheless large and decorated in good taste, like the house at 10 Downing Street.

The men dragged her to the end of a long hallway, then tossed her limp body into a loveseat. "Stay there," one of them ordered. Mary smirked to herself: if she had the energy, she wouldn't try and escape anyway. If her hunch was correct, she was exactly where she needed to be.

Footsteps retreated down another hallway, and distantly she heard one of the men talking – to someone else? She could barely hear what he was saying, he was so far away and his voice was partially muffled, like he was talking through a half-closed door.

" … she had washed up on the South Bank. She was carrying this …"

Someting heavy was placed against a wooden surface – her Baretta.

" … and this as well."

A barely impercetible sound of something soft hitting the same surface. A softer, scratchier voice, still male, spoke aloud.

"Bring her in, please. And get her some food."

A few minutes later, and Mary was picked up again. Her eyes flickered open again, though she cast them downward to the polished marble floor of the corridor she was being dragged down. Eventually the marble floor turned into a glossy wood floor, and she was roughly plopped into a seat again, this time a dining room chair. Her entire body sagged, and it took what little energy she had left into not collapsing onto the wood floor. She leaned against the table in front of her, pressing her face into her splayed arms, remaining like that for a few moments until a dish was placed on the table.

"Go ahead … eat," the soft male voice gently urged.

Mary somehow found the strength to open her eyes and reach for the bowl in front of her. A thick, creamy soup filled the bowl nearly to the top, a spoon already sitting in it. She was suddenly ravenous, ducking her head towards the bowl so she could place the spoonful of warm, thick soup into her mouth without spilling a drop. It filled her dry, grainy mouth with a comforting taste and soothed her throat as she swallowed. It tasted like how she thought real food ought to taste. She quickly took in another spoonful, then another and another, wolfing down half the soup.

 _If Mama or Granny saw me like this_ , Mary thought with fleeting amusement, _they'd both keel over_.

The realization that she couldn't remember either her mother or her grandmother's faces made her pause, and the man sitting across from her took this chance to speak again.

"Why are you here?"

Mary slowly raised her head, gazing across the polished table at the old man who was watching her. His hair was a bit longer than what might be considered neat for someone of his advanced age, and every strand of it was white. There were lines all across his face, she noticed with dismay. But his eyes … his eyes had hardly changed. They were his, Mary knew.

"What?" she asked, her voice cracked from disuse.

"Why are you here?" the old man rasped again. He had tried to speak a bit clearer, but Mary recognized that voice anyway. Even after an entire lifetime, she would always know that voice, no matter how hoarse or quiet it was.

The gun was still lying on the table, but the man had in his hand the other thing that Mary had had in her pocket. He glanced at it, his expression suddenly sad.

"Do you remember that?" Mary asked.

The man nodded. "I remember," he said slowly. He turned the little stuffed dog around his hand, inspecting every inch of it. "I've seen it before, many years ago. It belonged to a woman I once knew … a long time ago … in a dream I can't remember."

Mary's hands were shaking, and she dropped the spoon. "But it's not the exact same," she told him as calmly as she could. "Make it stand up."

The old man did as she told him. The padding in the stuffed dog's legs was too unevenly packed in for it to stand longer than a few seconds, but this one stood upright as though it were a real dog, and might walk its way across the table to Mary. It remained there for a whole minute, with both Mary and the old man watching it the entire time.

"Don't you see? It's not the same," Mary said. "It's impossible."

The old man looked towards Mary again, and there was something more than sadness in his eyes: a mixture of regret, horror, and at long last, comprehension. They held the glazed-over look that someone had when their whole world, their entire lives, came crumbling down in an instant. His breathing sounded ragged, and his hands were also trembling.

Mary nodded, looking straight into the man's watery blue eyes. "I've come back for you."


	2. The Merton Banking Job

_Okay, last chapter was just a prologue – this is the actual first chapter! Thanks for reading!_

* * *

Chapter One – The Merton Banking Job

The first time Mary ever experienced dream sharing, she was twenty-one years old, fresh out of university, and her father decided it was time for her to learn about the family business.

Her parents, Robert and Cora Crawley, were two of the creators of a military technology developed for both the U.S. and British armies. It wasn't, of course, a publicly known project, and Mary herself had known very little about it until the day her father formally introduced her to it. At first, she figured it was some sort of virtual reality, like an immersive video game, that was to be utilized as a training method for soldiers. Apart from that, she didn't know much else about it, and she didn't have much interested in whatever the mystery project was – until her father pulled her into it without warning.

She and Papa had been walking down Shaftesbury Avenue as she was telling him about her time at university; little bits and pieces though – even then she wasn't much for revealing what went on in her life. When they reached Charing Cross Road, her father asked her what simply sounded like a casual, if strange, question.

"Mary, do you recall where we started on this walk?"

And when she opened her mouth to answer, she realized that she didn't. It was like she and Papa had been dropped on the sidewalk, and there was no beginning to the conversation they had been having. She started to panic, wondering if she was losing her mind – how could she already be losing her memory at twenty-one? – but her father simply explained, calmly:

"We're actually in the sitting room, and this is a shared dream."

Despite her papa's reassurance, Mary's mind was sent reeling, and she looked around wildly at the crowded streets and people pushing past her. _This … this isn't real? I'm dreaming?_

Then, in a matter of seconds, the dream collapsed – the road in front of her exploded, whole buildings fragmenting and flying out into the air, debris being violently shot across the street, the people whipping their heads towards her before they too were projected into the air by invisible implosions.

And Mary wasn't just watching it all happen around her. She could actually _feel_ the pavement rumbling beneath her feet, sense the tremours building underneath the block. Her instinct in a normal situation would be to run for cover, but she could only stand still, watching the intersection of Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue burst apart.

Then the window in the building right next to her shattered, sending glass shards towards her face – and they _stung_. She could actually feel them prick her cheeks as though they were real!

 _But if this was a dream_ , Mary thought with alarm, _then why did it hurt—?_

A massive, fiery blast ripped the entire building apart in an instant, and the force of the explosion was strong enough to propel Mary into the air—

—and she jolted awake.

Her father explained, once she was calm, that this was the technology that he and her mother had helped developed in years past. And now, as he was approaching retirement, he had decided he would pass the knowledge of this technology to Mary, to let her decide where and how this technology might be used. She could sell the technology or teach it to other people, her sisters perhaps, or use it as recreation purposes, or simply lock it away and forget about it, if that was what she wanted to do. It was up to her, though he warned her, if she did wish to use it in the future, not to lose herself in the dream world.

That was Mary's first experience with shared dreaming, and despite the panic she had initially felt, along with the shock of watching Shaftesbury Avenue collapse right in front of her eyes, she wanted to go back almost immediately. The clarity and the realness of the dream, as well as the impossibilities that had happened within it, fascinated her. And no matter how many times she entered into the dream world, there was always something that made her stop and marvel, wonder just how the human mind could be the only tool that constructed these impossible places.

For days, she couldn't stop thinking about how she would use this technology – she couldn't shake off the excitement, the amazement she felt each time she went back into the dream world to see what she was able to do. She learned more on her own than her father or mother could ever teach her. And as much as she wanted to keep it a secret, she let her younger sisters in on it as well – but not before she had practically become an expert in understanding and shaping the dream world. Eventually all three of them moulded their careers to somehow fit into the occupation of shared dreaming – there was no way any of them could simply ignore or forget the world of the dream.

But in the years after that first experience in shared dreaming, Mary's world changed and not so much for the better; in her current situation, there weren't a whole lot of legitimate ways to use the skills she had anymore. She couldn't even remember the last time she went into a dream just for the sake of exploring it, to get away from the real world – now it was all just business, just part of the occupation that she had gotten herself into …

… And now couldn't get out of, like a bad dream.

* * *

For someone who wasn't formally trained as an architect, Mary thought Sybil had done a fairly good job of the conference room of the Merton Banking headquarters. A spacious, open room with unadorned cream-coloured walls, reflective panels in between the ceiling lights, a glass table one hundred feet long and lined with black leather swivel chairs. The Venetian blinds were drawn over the windows so that no one would see the solid black void beyond.

The layout of the rest of the building was simple, but Mary hoped there wouldn't be a need for a complicated maze for this job. It was created to only just resemble the real Merton Banking building in the heart of London – square, the lifts running up and down the center, offices and lounges everywhere else, a pristine lobby on the ground floor. Sybil had visited the real headquarters and taken detailed notes not only on the layout of the building, but of the decor, which was much like what one could find in any other office building. The building here had many differences to the real one, but Sybil had deemed it suitable enough to fool even someone who worked there daily.

And evidently, it was fooling both Richard Grey and his son, Larry.

Mary and Sybil, dressed in business attire, were sitting on opposite sides of the long glass conference table, and Richard and Larry Grey were seated side by side at the end closest to them. This was the setup of a small business meeting, a scenario that both Greys surely went through multiple times a day. Richard Grey wouldn't view this as abnormal and suspect that this a dream.

"I'm still not fully grasping this," Richard said hesitantly. "What _is_ extraction, and what does it have to do with me or the company?"

"It's a method of theft – information theft to be precise," Mary explained matter-of-factly. "The most valuable secrets are not ones written on paper or published online – they're the ones that live only in the mind of the managing director or the owner of a company, the one who runs the whole enterprise. Someone like you, Mr Grey. Extraction is the process of stealing those secrets directly from the subject's mind, a process which can happen without the subject even knowing what has happened."

Richard Grey frowned. "How can someone steal something from another person's mind? Some sort of hypnosis?"

"No, not hypnosis," Mary said, "it's done while the brain is functioning at a subconscious level."

Richard Grey had a blank face, and Larry narrowed his eyes. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he asked.

"What Mary means," Sybil said, matching Larry's steely glare, "is that extractors can access a person's secrets through their dreams. Dreams are created subconsciously, while people are sleeping and they don't know what's happening. Their defenses are lowered which makes any part of their mind, including the part which holds secrets. A subject subconsciously conceals those secrets which can be discovered within a shared dream, if the person searching for them knows how to look for them."

With a midly frightened expression, Richard Grey asked, "Is that even possible? Can people really do that?"

"Yes," Mary answered. "It isn't something that's known to most of the public, and many companies still use common theft techniques such as hacking against their rivals. But it is a real technology. And you Mr Grey, as head of Merton Banking, are at a very high risk of being subject to extraction."

Richard Grey swallowed hard and nodded. "I do have a lot of rivals."

Larry's eyes narrowed again. "Would someone really attempt extraction on my father?"

Mary nodded. "Yes. Which is why we're here to offer you our services. We can train both of you to protect your mind from extractors, to allow your brain to defend itself even while you are asleep. For both of you, the head and future head of Merton Banking, protecting your most valuable secrets would be, as I believe, of the utmost importance."

Larry's eyes flickered towards the wall on his side of the table, a subtle motion which Mary caught.

Richard Grey seemed interested in the idea, but still wary. "How can you do that?"

"Because, if I chose to be, I could be the most skilled extractor," Mary answered with a tiny degree of pride. "I know how to search a person's mind and find their secrets, I know the tricks to hide and to uncover them. I can help you teach your subconscious to defend itself against extractors, so even when you are asleep, your guard is never down and your secrets are always safe."

"Right," Richard Grey murmured. "That sounds …" His eyes locked onto the glass table in front of him, widening as though he had just remembered something important he had forgotten. He stood up quickly, the swivel chair sliding back. Mary and Sybil rose as well, as did Larry.

"I will have to consider your proposal, ladies," Richard Grey said, fingering the buttons on his three-piece suit. "But thank you for your consultation."

He gestured to the double doors in the middle the room that led to the reception area on this floor. Mary and Sybil shook hands with him before exiting the conference room, followed by Richard Grey and lastly Larry. Larry shut the doors to the conference room and locked them with a key he produced and then returned to his own pocket. He followed his father down a corridor, Mary not taking her eyes off either of them until they turned a corner and were out of sight.

"Do you think he knows?" Sybil asked, keeping her voice low. "Richard seemed sort of confused, but his projection of Larry … I think he's a bit suspicious."

The projection of Larry was a bit of a hitch in the plan: Richard Grey's projection of his eldest son and heir was more developed than what Mary was used to dealing with. It was the part of his subconscious that might alert him to suspicious activity – such as extractors poking around. Mary thought it likely that Richard Grey's subconscious based the projection off of the real Larry Grey.

"It doesn't matter," Mary said, hoping that she could convince Sybil that it really didn't matter. However, she had the hunch that it might matter a great deal indeed. "We _can_ get the information here. The information is in a safe behind one of the wall panels; Larry Grey looked at it when I mentioned valuable secrets."

"In the conference room?" Sybil glanced back at the double doors, locked and probably much too heavy to knock down.

"Yes, of course in there—" Mary stopped suddenly. They weren't alone: plenty of other projections were milling about the reception area – one behind the desk, a couple seated in the black and metal chairs, one standing beside a large fish tank. There were others walking around, holding files or briefcases, and one was dressed as a janitor with a yellow bucket and a mop. And most of them were looking towards Mary and Sybil, standing by themselves in front of the conference room doors.

"Come on – walk, and look straight ahead," Mary instructed Sybil, starting off as she spoke. Her heels clicked against the freshly-mopped floor. "We're drawing attention to ourselves."

"I know, I know," Sybil said, taking big steps just to keep up with Mary. She wasn't accustomed to wearing high heels. "There's a break room down this way, we can probably talk there."

Mary assumed her businesswoman stride, hoping that would convince the projections she was not a threat. It worked – at least on some of them. This was a job they would have to complete quickly, and without any more attention being drawn to either her or Sybil …

But they had hardly passed the reception area when the tremors started.

Both Mary and Sybil stopped short, feeling the floor shake underneath them. Glass window panes rattled and the Venetian blinds over them clattered. Water sloshed out of the large fish tank, and pens rolled off the receptionist's desk. None of the projections seemed to pay any mind to the shaking, but they had resumed staring at Mary and Sybil.

"What's going on up there?" Sybil wondered aloud, looking towards the ceiling as though she might find the answer there. The lights flickered on and off briefly.

"Shit." Mary's eyes ran around the reception area, watching every object in the room quiver. "Keep it together, come on," she muttered as if talking to an invisible person.

Another tremor rocked the headquarters of Merton Banking …

* * *

… as an explosion on the street shook the foundations of the flat Edith was standing in.

She stood close to the window, close enough to see a car spontaneously burst into flames. There wasn't much time left in this dream – the projections were already raging around the London street, breaking into shops and flats, breaking windows and occasionally attacking each other. They weren't armed, thank goodness, and they weren't any more organized than a mob, but if they all came flooding into the flat at once … that would be enough to wake everyone up.

The Grey family's London home was an easy location to replicate – all three Crawley sisters had been there at least once once, so the others had been able to help Edith dream it up. It wasn't a place where there was going to be much interaction: Mary and Sybil only needed this level as a stabilizer to go down another level – a dream within a dream, deep enough to uncover a subject's most highly valued secrets. Edith was only here to make sure the projections didn't converge on them. If they did, it was her job to either warn Mary and Sybil that they needed to hurry up, or to wake them up from the dream they were in.

 _I'm always the one saddled with the dull job_ , Edith said to herself. To be fair, she wasn't officially an extractor like Mary and Sybil were, but for once it would be cool to really see how they worked their deception on unsuspecting people.

At the moment, there wasn't much to do but mind the reverberations of the harmless explosions – harmless for now, to be precise. Edith, more out of boredrom than a real need, checked the tubes running from the machine sitting on the sitting room coffee and into the arms of the sleepers nearby: Sybil lying on a chaise longue underneath the window, Richard Grey in a leather wingback chair, and Mary in a wooden chair. There was still plenty of time on the clock, they wouldn't be waking up soon … as long as all went according to plan.

Another explosion outside rattled the windows and shook the chaise longue that Sybil was lying in. She'd be feeling the explosions in her dream – it was probably a mistake to position her so close to the window.

Edith could see the projections outside on the street – it was only a matter of time before they came into the flat.

"Hurry it up, you two," she murmured as she looked between Sybil and Mary.

* * *

As she and Mary resumed walking away from the reception room, Sybil felt another tremor underfoot. Whatever was going on up above, she was optimistic that she and Mary would have enough time to get into the safe. The dream still felt relatively stable, and as long as it remained that way for a little while longer, they could get this job done.

That depended on the tremors not getting any more violent, though.

"So what's the plan?" Sybil asked Mary.

"I'm going to get in from the outside," Mary explained. "We'll go two flights up, then I'll repel down and get into the conference room. You need to keep a look-out. If Larry Grey hints to Richard that something is off, either he might try and reach the safe first, or the projections will become armed bodyguards."

Sybil groaned. "I'm not sure if I hate the real Larry Grey or the projection more."

Mary gave a hint of a smile at her sister's obvious disdain towards Larry Grey. "If you come across him, you can shoot him, you know."

"Oh, I certainly will," Sybil promised, grinning eagerly at the thought. She pointed to a short corridor branching off from the area they were in. "Stairwell's down this way."

She lead the way to a metal door and pushed it open. The stairwell was completely empty, which meant that things were going in their favour. Mary cautionsly peered over the railing – nothing but stairs as far as the eye could see. The building had to end somewhere, but all Mary could tell was that they were very, very high up.

"Which floor are we on?" she asked.

Sybil shrugged. "One in the double digits, I suppose."

Both women hurried up two flights, then exited onto the empty floor. No projections were milling about, and if they were quick enough, they wouldn't come across any hostile ones. They headed across the empty waiting area and flung open the door to the small office that was above the conference room.

The office had only a desk with a computer, turned off at the moment, but lying in one corner was a rappelling device and a glass cutter. Just where Mary had told Sybil to plant them.

"Perfect," Mary murmured to herself. She looped the rope and knotted it before lifting one edge of the desk up and securing the rope around the leg. She tested it; it would hold firmly.

Sybil stood in the doorway, glancing behind her in case any of the projections came running down the corridor. "Are you going to give me something to defend myself with, or shall I resort to hand-to-hand combat?"

Mary paused in the middle of securing the rappelling device around her waist. "Oh right," she muttered, reaching into her blazer and holding out the SIG-Sauer for Sybil to take.

"You sure you know what you're doing?" Sybil asked, taking the handgun.

Mary decided it would be best not to answer that question directly. "Once I'm down all the way, go back down to the conference room doors and make sure no one gets in."

"And if they kill me?"

Mary rolled her eyes – Sybil knew well enough what would happen if someone died in a dream. "Well, then you'll wake up. But try not to die, please – it'll make things a lot harder for me. I'll knock on the doors when I've got the information we need."

Sybil let out petulant huff. "Try not to die yourself," she retorted.

"Oh for heaven's sake, don't be a child," Mary mumbled as turned her back on Sybil. She lifted the blinds to expose the window glass and start cutting at the panel. Outside there was nothing but a pitch-black field, almost like a starless night sky. As she cut a hole in the pane large enough for her to fit, she felt the building tremble again – the tremor was not as turbulent as before, but Mary knew there would probably be a more violent one coming.

"What _is_ that?" Sybil wondered aloud again.

"The projections in Edith's dream are getting angry, I think," Mary answered immediately as she pushed out the circle of glass she had just cut through. It fell out into the void in front of her, and she stuffed the glass cutter into her blazer pocket, next to her own handgun.

Sybil took in a shaky breath. "Do you think Edith can hold them off?"

"I don't think they're that close," Mary said, although she wasn't sure of her own answer. "They're probably still tearing up the street."

"They _were_ rather angry when we knocked Richard Grey out almost as soon as he got into the dream," Sybil said.

Mary tugged on the rope around the desk leg one more time to ensure it would hold, then she let the other end fall through the hole in the window. "Okay. I'm going to go down now. Remember, wait until I'm all the way down, then go—"

"I know, go downstairs and try not to die," Sybil finished.

Mary frowned. "I'm serious, Sybil. _Don't die._ "

Without giving Sybil a chance to make up some excuse for her retort, she jumped through the hole.

It was oddly cold outside the building, like there was a giant invisible air conditioner in the dark empty field. Clenching the rope tight with her shivering hands, Mary rappelled down the glossy side of the incredibly tall building; she couldn't see where the ground was, or how far up the skyscraper went – it simply disappeared into inky-black nothingness. She darted past the window of the story that separated the office she had just exited from and the conference room.

She stopped herself in front of the conference room window. The lights inside were off, but she could still see a slight reflection on the long glass table. Pulling the glass cutter from her pocket, she made a hole identical to the one she had put into the window two floors up. By now, Sybil should be racing back down the stairs back to the conference room doors, ready to hold off any converging projections. She was a fair shot, and Mary was optimistic that she could keep the projections at bay long enough for her to get what she needed.

Silently, she slipped through the hole and crept around the glass table where she had been sitting at moments before, pulling out her handgun as a precaution. Larry Grey had looked towards one of the wall panels, where the safe had to be hidden behind. She knew how to find these concealed safes, and it didn't take her long at all before she found the right wall panel and swung it open to reveal a large, heavy safe.

Outside the door, she heard a shot and froze, listening, but she couldn't make out any following sounds. Hopefully that was just Sybil taking down a rogue projection. No matter what, though, she couldn't stop to check. The job needed to be finished, and fast.

The lock to the safe wasn't hard hard to figure out at all – there wasn't any specific numbers to unlock it, all Mary had to do was spin the dial until she heard a click and the door opened up. A white envelope was sitting in the safe, and Mary took it out as she pulled an identical one from her trouser pocket. She had come prepared, knowing exactly how Richard Grey's subconscious would hide—

The lights came on. Mary froze, watching the double doors open from the corner of her eye.

"Hello Mary," Larry Grey drawled, pulling Sybil into the conference room and holding her own SIG-Sauer to her head. He held onto both her wrists with his other hand. Sybil was glaring up at him, looking like she'd tear his face out if she got free of him.

Mary instinctively raised her own handgun at the sight of her sister with a gun to her head, but Larry shook his head. "Put it down." His finger waggled over the trigger, indicating just what he had in mind if Mary didn't comply.

But Mary just laughed. "You should know what happens if you die in a dream. She'll just wake up."

Sybil squirmed to free her wrists from Larry's grasp. "Let me go, you wanker!" Being touched by Larry Grey, she often claimed, was one of the most repulsive things that could ever happen to her.

"Did you happen to inform your father?" Mary asked, arching an eyebrow. "Or are you just taking matters into your own hands?"

"If you play nicely, he doesn't have to know you were trying to steal from him," Larry said. He glanced to the envelope in Mary's hand. "Please."

Mary slapped the envelope onto the table, not taking her eyes off of Larry or lowering her gun.

"And the gun," Larry added. To show that he meant business, he cocked the gun at Sybil's temple.

Reluctantly, Mary placed her gun on the table and slid it along the polished glass. It stopped about halfway between her and Larry. Slowly, she lifted her arms so Larry could see she had nothing else to threaten him with. "There. Now I suggest you let her go."

But Larry didn't release Sybil, nor did he remove his gun pointed at her temple. "We're not finished here. You're going to tell me the name of your employer. Who sent you to do this job?"

Mary hesitated – what kind of twisted projection was this? "Are you going to run off and tell Richard? You're just a projection, I could kill you and no one would need to know—"

"What's going on here?"

All heads turned to the booming, frightened voice of Richard Grey, who suddenly strode into the conference room. "What is this – Larry, what in God's name are you doing?"

"These two little thieves were trying to steal the idea about the American expansion," Larry explained quickly. "They're going to tell me who sent them."

Richard Grey looked around in utter confusion. "What – I don't … what are you doing?" He suddenly seemed to realize that Larry was holding Sybil hostage. "Larry, just let go of Miss Crawley, please. I don't think there's any need for _that_."

"Your father is quite right, Larry," Mary added. "There's no use in threatening her."

Larry quirked a brow, and the corner of his mouth turned up in his trademark sneer. "Depends on what's being threatened here."

He pointed the handgun downwards, and Mary didn't have time to shout "Stop!" before he pulled the trigger. Sybil gritted her teeth but couldn't hold back the scream of pain as the bullet entered her right foot. She doubled over, but Larry kept his grip around her wrists.

"Larry! What are you doing?" Richard Grey still had not yet realized the nature of the scenario.

"Relax, Father," Larry sniffed. "Mary's just going to tell you who wants to steal your secrets, unless she wants to see me shoot Sybil's other foot."

"You arsehole!" Sybil said through heavy breaths. "I'm tougher than you think. I can take the pain!"

Larry shrugged. "Okay, let's see how you do then." He pointed the handgun at Sybil's left foot.

Mary didn't waste any seconds in thinking through what would happen after she did what she was about to do. She sprang onto the glass table, skidding across the smooth surface and grabbing the gun when she was within reach of it. She pointed the gun upwards and hit her target on the first try.

Sybil collapsed to the floor, a bullet in the middle of her forehead. As soon as she dropped to the floor, the entire building began to shake with more violent tremors than had gone through the dream before. It felt like an earthquake.

* * *

Sybil's eyes flew open, and she startled Edith when she shot up from the chaise longue, spitting out a loud, "Shit!" as she got to her feet.

"What's going on?" Edith asked, looking at Sybil frantically. "What are you – Mary's still in there!"

"I know!" Sybil cried. "We ran into some trouble."

Trouble was an understatement. She was the dreamer of the dream that Mary and Richard Grey were still in. Since she had woken up, the dream would crumble, and there were only a few seconds before the other dreamers woke up. And Mary, still within the dream, barely had two minutes in the dream before it collapsed around her to get what she needed.

Edith looked over at Mary, who was still sound asleep. She glanced back at Sybil, confused at the events that had happened within the second dream. "Why'd _you_ wake up?"

Sybil let out a grumble."That bastard Larry Grey showed up as a projection, and he got out of control. _Way_ out of control. He was almost like the real Larry. Mary had to shoot me in the head to get me away from him."

Edith gave Sybil an odd look. "Even in your dreams, he can't take a hint and stay away."

"If I ever see him again, I'm going to do some rather nasty things to him," Sybil promised.

She knelt down to Richard Grey, checking the tubes in his arm. "Help me reconnect the loop – we have to keep him under a little while longer."

"Did Mary get whatever she needed?" Edith asked.

Sybil shook her head. "Not yet, but she's almost—"

Outside, another explosion blasted nearby. "God, what's going on up there?" Sybil asked.

"I don't know. Rough piece of track, I guess? It's been like this the whole time," Edith explained. "The projections calmed down a few minutes after you went under, but they started rioting about ten minutes ago. Did you feel anything in your dream?"

"Yeah, we felt the shocks, but it wasn't anything serious," Sybil readjusted the tubes in Richard Grey's arm, allowing more of the REM-inducing drug to flow into him. "Do you think they'll come in here?"

Edith tossed her arms up in exasperation. "I don't know! I don't know how this stuff works! You go out there and see if those stupid projections are going to attack us."

"Alright Edith, just stay calm," Sybil said. "They won't attack us if he doesn't wake up to the middle of all this."

Another car blew up, only about twenty feet from the flat. Sybil raised her head and saw the fiery cloud through the open window. "Some rough piece of track," she muttered. "Hopefully we won't accidentally get a kick from the train. Do you know how much time is still left on the timer?"

"I'm not sure," Edith admitted. "You taught Gwen how to signal the countdown, right?"

Sybil nodded. "Of course I did. She'll do it on time. I trust her."

* * *

In the train rattling across Europe, in a closed off compartment, Gwen Dawson watched the timer on the machine tick down the seconds. 60 … 59 … 58 …

She didn't really have the faintest idea why her long-lost friend Sybil called her about a favour, which involved her flying out to Prague and getting on a train where the Crawley sisters plus an unfamiliar old man were. Sybil had briefed her quickly on what she needed to do, which involved a timer on a machine in a suitcase and an iPod. Whatever was going on, Sybil had told her that she couldn't say much about it.

"It's a job," Sybil had simply told her. "But it's a really important job, and we need your help to make it go smoothly. Don't worry, you can do this."

Gwen was still baffled at what kind of job this was, if it even was a job – it looked more like some weird science experiment, with tubes running into the four sleeping persons around her and the strange wiring in the machine sitting on top of the fold-out table. And the old man … Gwen didn't recognize him, though she though he looked like an important businessman. But whatever the fine details were, Gwen didn't want to let her friend down, and that's why her eyes had been glued to the timer since the two minute mark.

41 … 40 … 39 …

Just as Sybil had instructed her, Gwen placed the headphones over Edith's ears and readied the iPod to play the song that Sybil had pre-selected. The train went over another rough part of the track (it had been a very bumpy ride) and Edith's head bumped against the window with the sudden jolt. Poor Edith might get a headache with how many times her head had been bumping against the window whenever the train went over a bad part of the track.

32 … 31 … 30

As soon as the timer blinked the number 30, Gwen hit the 'play' button with her thumb, raising the volume until it was nearly at the highest bar. She wondered how was Edith not jerking awake with the sudden loud music blasting into her ears? From where she was crouched on the floor, she could just hear the music through the headphones, and she could make out the lyrics playing.

 _Sometimes, when I feel sad, and things look blue_

 _I wish I had a girl …_

* * *

 _… say one like you_

Edith had initially thought it was just an echo from the shouts of the rioting projections, but then she realized that it was the music – distant, low and slowed-down, but there was no mistaking that it was the countdown that Gwen Dawson had just signalled.

"Do you hear that?" Edith asked Sybil.

Sybil nodded, worrying her lip. "Yeah, sort of. So there's not much time left. Great."

She went over to Mary sleeping in the wooden chair, checking her face for any signs of stirring. There was nothing to indicate that she would wake up soon. "She's still in there."

Edith folded her arms, standing over Sybil. "I hope she knows what she's doing."

"Me too," Sybil agreed, "though I'm not sure she actually does. And she doesn't have a lot of time left with the dream collapsing."

So Mary's gotten herself into another mess, Edith thought. "So what do we do? Let her stay there?"

"Wake her up," Sybil answered. "Give her a kick."

* * *

The dream was collapsing without Sybil to hold it together.

Glass windowpanes were cracking and shattering, the metal beams in the skeleton bending and shooting chunks of the ceiling to the floor. The entire building bucked and started to break apart – Mary knew she had only a few minutes before it would collapse on top of her or she'd be killed by a piece of debris.

She had known exactly what would happen when she decided to shoot Sybil in the forehead to wake her up. She fully understood that, without Sybil to keep the dream together, everything would collapse quickly – perhaps too quickly to get the information she needed to acquire. And now, she needed to react quickly to finish the job.

Richard Grey was cowering with his hands on top of his head to protect himself from the debris falling from the ceiling. "Someone help! Help us!" he called out.

Mary slid off the table and lifted the handgun again, this time pointing it right at Larry. She fired at his chest, the force of the bullet entering him propelling him backwards – right as the ceiling at his end of the room cracked and fell apart. Larry hardly had time to look up as a huge mound of plaster, metal and stone crashed down on top of him.

"Oh God! Larry! Someone help!" Richard Grey shouted.

Mary didn't look back at Richard Grey, still covering his face and crying for help, as she raced out the door, wrenching the envelope from her jacket pocket and tearing it open to get at the papers inside. The projection of Larry Grey really was just like the real person – which included being insultingly thick in the head. He had seen right through her trick of using two identical envelopes, one with a blank piece of paper tucked inside.

She dashed for the nearby reception area, the floor of which was still shaking as though there was a massive earthquake. Water sloshed out of the fish tank and crystal flower vases crashed to the floor. Light fixtures snapped off of the walls, sending sparks flying. Mary could hear the entire building heaving, unable to support itself.

"No, just wait!" Mary said, as though that would hold the dream together. Was killing Sybil really that smart of an idea?

A bullet whizzed past her shoulder, and instinctively Mary started shooting in front of her, right at the projection aiming a shotgun at her. It went down in a second, but she could hear others coming towards her amidst the crumbling infrastructure.

"God, this just had to happen!" she moaned as she aimed her handgun at another projection, dressed as a security guard. She had to get somewhere else – somewhere private where she could read through the papers she was holding. She estimated she had at most two minutes before the dream killed her and she woke up.

She lurched towards the stairwell as the marble floor caved in beneath her feet. Slamming the door behind her, she pulled the sheets of paper from the envelope, holding them close to her face so she could read the words under the lights rapidly blinking on and off.

Every line of text was blacked out.

"Shit!" Mary swore, roughly tossing aside the papers. Richard Grey had somehow realized that something was up, and now the vital information Mary needed was hidden away again. She had failed.

She didn't have a lot of time to curse her failure before – as though there was an invisible hand pushing against the back of her skull – her body was hurled into the air. She plummeted towards the stairs, which crumbled apart before she could crash into them—

* * *

—and her eyes flew open, staring at the ceiling and Sybil and Edith's faces directly above her.

"We gave you the kick," Sybil stated matter-of-factly, just to keep Mary from asking what the hell had happened. Tipping Mary's flimsy wooden chair over, with her in it, had done the job.

Mary jolted upwards, scrambling to her feet and tearing out the tubes in her arms. "Is Richard still out?" She could see for herself that he was still unconscious in the wingback chair, but it wouldn't stay that way for much longer. "The dream's falling apart around him – he's going to get killed and he'll wake up."

"Don't worry, I gave him a bit more to keep him from waking up," Sybil said. "But the countdown started."

Mary had heard the echoes of the music throughout the flat the second she woke up: even slowed down, she'd never fail to recognize her favourite song – or what used to be her favourite. "Then there's not much time left," she said to Sybil.

The very question that Mary knew would be asked sooner or later, though she was afraid to give the real answer, was asked by Edith. "Did you get what you needed?"

Mary shook her head. "He was starting to suspect that someone was getting into his mind, thanks to Larry. He knew something was up, so he held back. He blanked out all the important bits on the paper."

Edith and Sybil were silent, looking at each other in the full realization that they had failed the job. Mary turned her back and pretended to fiddle with something on the machine. "Look, I'm sorry. It's just … ugh, too many things happened all at once. It was out of my control."

She could sense the disappointment both her sisters had for her. Control was something she prided herself on having and she felt ashamed for no longer being the one with it. She was getting sloppy, and in their current situation she couldn't afford to slip up during a job.

And even worse, she felt that if she hadn't been so hasty, this mishap could have been avoided. She should have see that the projections would catch up to them so quickly – the design of the Merton headquarters was too simple, too uniform, too identical to the real one. That was the cost of no longer having a trained architect on the team. She and Sybil could only do so much on their own.

Sybil was obviously trying to make it seem like she wasn't half as disappointed as she really was. "Well, I suppose that's that then. I swear we had it. It seemed so simple. I didn't think Richard Grey would see through the deception so easily."

"It wasn't Richard who saw through it – the projection of Larry was the one that alerted him to the fact that something more was going on," Mary said. She furrowed her brow as she recalled the realism of the projection of Larry Grey. "I've honestly never seen a projection like him before. It was like he was actually _there_ , like he was living in his father's subconscious and waiting for us."

That was the one element of the failed job that she knew she couldn't have foreseen. Why did the projection of Larry Grey behave like he did? It didn't seem quite right – had Mary not known any better, it would have seemed like they were infiltrating Larry instead of his father. That confused her

"Do you think it's some sort of defense mechanism that he's trained in?" Sybil asked.

"If it is, it's a brand-new one," Mary answered. Whatever the reason behind it was, it would be something they had to figure out later. If they came across something like it again, they wouldn't succeed in that job either.

"So now what do we do?" Edith asked, looking at Mary in a demand for a good answer. "We've got the countdown to worry about, he's going to wake up any minute, and those bloody projections sound _really_ angry."

Another car explosion accentuated her point. The projections in this dream were still outside, but if Richard woke up and figured out that he was still in a dream that wasn't his own, they'd stampede upstairs and attack them.

"We don't need to worry about the countdown," Mary said. "If I can get the information out of him here, then we'll be fine."

"Oh, so you actually have a plan?" Edith snorted.

Mary rounded on Edith. "Look, if you've got a plan yourself, I suggest you say so _right now_. But I'm trying to use our last chance to get what we need, and frankly I don't see how you're going to help."

"You failed in the second level, so how the hell are you going to make him talk here without making it obvious like you did the last time?" Edith shot back.

" _You weren't even there!_ " Mary shouted. "You don't know what happened, so don't act like you could do any better of a job!"

"Oi!" Sybil got in between her older sisters, pushing them apart. It was bad enough that they argued in reality, she didn't like the thought of them arguing when there was a rampaging mob right outside the flat. "You two can argue later, but if there's another way to get that information, then I think we should try."

Edith stepped back towards the wall, still fuming. "You better not mess this up, Mary."

"Thank you for your kind words of support," Mary spat in return as she walked over to the master bedroom, where she knew a handgun was sitting in the top drawer of the dresser. At this point, she was only improvising, and she didn't know if this idea would come even close to working.

As soon as Richard Grey's eyes flickered open, Mary pressed the gun straight to his temple. "The plans for the American expansion," she said. "What are the details?"

Richard Grey, still slouched in the wingback chair, slowly lifted his shaking arms above his head. His eyes darted around the room, briefly resting on Sybil and Edith standing on the opposite wall. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I think you do," Mary said. "Tell me what your decision is regarding those plans."

"I said I don't know what you're talking about," Richard Grey insisted.

Mary cocked the gun. "Do you know now?"

Richard Grey opened his mouth just as a shop down the street exploding, glass cracking and noisily bouncing off the street. He frowned, trying to peer around Mary to see out the window. "What on Earth's going on out there?"

"Not any of your concern!" Mary knew she was going to need answers within a minute or the timer Sybil's friend was minding would force her to wake up. "Tell me what you know right now!"

"Why do you want to know?" Richard Grey sputtered. "Who are you working for?"

Mary groaned, the music echoing through the flat serving as a reminder of the clock ticking. "You've got five seconds to start saying something useful, or I blow your brains out."

Richard Grey's face paled. "Alright, alright!"

Mary thought that she had secured a last-minute victory, but Richard paused suddenly, his brow creasing. Once she realize he was studying her face curiously, she feared that success wasn't going to happen after all.

"Wait a minute," he said cautiously, "I know you. You were in my dream just now. You and _her_ too." He pointed at Sybil standing by the wall, who looked at Mary frantically.

The sound of the front door breaking down and hundreds of feet pounding on the floor sent a very bad feeling through Mary. In desperation, she grabbed Richard by the shoulder and forced him to his knees, pressing the barrel of the handgun to the back of his head. "Just hurry up and tell us what you plan to do with the American expansion project! Right now!"

"Who are you?" Richard cried out instead. "How did you get in … ?" His face drained of colour again as he suddenly realized exactly Mary was afraid he would find out. "Wait … how did _I_ get in here? I thought I was just in Prague … no, wait … I was—"

The door to the flat splintered apart as a dozen men and women came flooding through all at once, tearing through to the sitting room in seconds.

* * *

"Godammit!" Mary shouted as she woke up, startling Gwen who was still crouched on the floor of the train compartment.

Richard Grey figured out he was dreaming by remembering where he was really supposed to be. People did that in dreams sometimes – in the middle of a dream about them being back in school, they'd remember that they were actually grown-up – but in Mary's experience that rarely happened during a heist. Just her luck that the man had to think about his own question, where did they come from.

And they were so close! They could have gotten the information if he hadn't purposefully stalled.

Sybil and Edith were awake too, but Richard Grey was still asleep – the projections wouldn't have touched him. Gwen stood up quickly as Mary ripped off her tubes, and bent over Richard Grey's sleeping figure, checking the tubes in his wrists, then hurriedly tapping a few buttons on the machine.

"I can't believe you!" Edith shot up from her seat, practically lunging at Mary. "You said you were going to get it this time!"

"I said I was going to try!" Mary shouted back. "I didn't say for certain that I _would_."

Edith sniffed. "You seemed pretty confident that you would."

Mary straightened up, pointing at the timer which the tubes in Richard Grey's arms were connected to. "Just be happy he isn't going to wake up yet. I've set his timer back two minutes. So let's get out of here before he wakes up for real."

She pulled down her bag that was up on the rack above the seats and slammed the machine closed. "We'll be in Berlin soon; we're getting off there," she said over her shoulder as she pushed the compartment door open and disappeared down the corridor.

Edith could only grumble as she got her own bag down from the overhead rack. She followed Mary out, leaving Sybil and Gwen alone in the compartment (aside from Richard Grey, still asleep).

"What happened? The timer didn't reach zero. Did I do something wrong?" Gwen fearfully asked Sybil.

"No, you did perfect," Sybil assured her. "You remembered the music, and it really helped us."

Gwen nodded. "So now are you going to tell me exactly what all _that_ was about?"

Sybil worried her lip and looked away. She really hated keeping her friend in the dark, but she knew she could under no circumstances reveal what she and her sisters really did. It wasn't that Sybil believed Gwen couldn't keep a secret, but maintaining confidentiality on the shared dream technology was much too important.

"I'm sorry, but I really can't," she sighed.

Gwen lifted eyebrow. "Sybil, I really want to know – you disappear from London without even another address to give me, then you call me up to help you do this weird thing on this random train going to Germany with some weird old man. You're not doing something illegal, are you?"

Sybil hesitated before telling Gwen, "Maybe someday I can tell you what my sisters and I were doing. But for now," she unzipped a corner of her backpack, "we'll just have to part ways with this."

She held out a thick wad of money to Gwen. It felt so wrong just to hand off Gwen's payment without an explanation as to why she had called her out to Prague to get on a Berlin-bound train. It made Gwen seem less like an old friend and more of a temporary helper hired for this one job. The last thing Sybil wanted was for their friendship to be totally severed because of this.

Gwen reluctantly took the money. "Just email me sometime, okay? There are a lot of people back home who miss you too. Thomas says the hospital hasn't been the same without you. And Daisy misses getting together to bake cookies and stuff with you." She paused. "And _I've_ missed you so much. I thought about trying to find you wherever you were, just so I could see you again. I thought something terrible had happened to you when you left your flat in that state. Like you had been kidnapped or forced to leave the country. It's not like you to just … vanish all of a sudden."

Sybil couldn't suppress the enormous twinge of guilt as she thought of the friends she had been forced to leave behind. "Just tell the others that I'm fine. I'm perfectly alright, and I miss them so much to. And tell them that maybe … maybe I'll get to go home in a while."

"Maybe?" Gwen repeated, her suspicions rising. "Sybil, _are_ you doing something—?"

Sybil spun around and exited the compartment before Gwen could finish. Tears were starting to form in her eyes at remembering the life she had loved and had been forced to leave behind. Her brief stint at the hospital, working alongside the cheeky but well-meaning Thomas Barrow – cut short all of a sudden. Her evenings of hanging out at the pub with Gwen and her other friends – also gone in an instant. And all the times she had been meaning to email or call them, instead being petrified with the fear of not being able to give them a good reason why she had suddenly disappeared like a thief in the night.

She wanted to go back so badly, but she couldn't. If she or either of her sisters tried to enter any part of the United Kingdom, they'd be arrested. And she had no clue why that was – only Mary knew the exact reason to why that was, but she had never told them. So they were stuck together, forced to do extractions like the one they had just attempted in order to survive, all the while hoping they might discover a way to return home.

Why had she let Mary drag her into this?

* * *

 _A/N: Pretty early on I realized it was going to be difficult writing about things happening simultaneously in the different dreams, and since there's no way to watch fanfiction like an actual movie, I just have to resort to using the page breaks. So please excuse any confusion, there's only so much I can do with writing :\_


	3. Laying Low

_I'm so glad this fic has already gotten such a good response! I know that even though it's a STEAMM fic we haven't any of Matthew, Tom or Sir Anthony yet, we definitely will soon – this chapter, in fact, will be a treat for you Edith x Anthony shippers! So stay tuned, and as always, every little review is appreciated._

* * *

Chapter Two – Laying Low

It was every woman for herself once the train arrived at Berlin. All three Crawley sisters separated as soon as they stepped onto the platform, keeping far apart from each other as they passed through the station. Their individual taxicabs went to separate hotels. If one of them was compromised, it was safer for the other two if they weren't close by. Not that Mary felt there'd be much danger regarding Richard Grey, but they had to be careful just in case.

Mary didn't even know where her sisters would be staying as she rode towards her own hotel, the Hotel Adlon. If one of them wanted to leave Berlin and go elsewhere, she could – she just had to let the others know when and where. The only time all three of them could really be together was while they were doing a job, and that really wasn't the best time to have some sisterly bonding.

The sky was darkening quickly as Mary went up to her room and unpacked her bag, putting everything into the bureau or the closet. She had the feeling she might be staying for a while. Here in Berlin she could lie low, wait for another job offer to come around. She could afford to wait around here – the advance payment along with her own savings would support her for a few weeks.

She stashed the machine case under the bed as though she could forget about it there, but she was unable to shake the guilt at having failed an important job. The corporation that had hired them to infiltrate Richard Grey's mind – Foyle Industries – wasn't going to like the fact that they had failed. Mary was already at odds (to put it lightly) with Tony Foyle, the head of that corporation, and she could only imagine that he'd fly off the handle at hearing she had failed. Her email to him, which took a great deal of courage to actually send, consisted only of three words.

 _Failed job. Sorry._

As soon as the email was sent she closed her laptop and stuffed it in her bag, hoping she could forget about it for a few days. She turned out most of the lights and climbed into the large bed that was obviously meant for two, thinking that she could at least try to get a bit of normal sleep, even though she wasn't tired at all.

She kept the lamp on the bedside table on for just a minute more as she picked up the stuffed dog that she carried everywhere with her and attempted to make it stand: it flopped back down as soon as her fingertips separated from the frayed fabric body.

Relieved, she turned out the light and pulled the covers over her head. Sleep didn't come for a long time, and she tossed and turned on the stiff, unfamiliar sheets, burying her face in the pillows that were either too flaccid or too firm. After such a long time of lodging in various hotels and apartments she always thought she'd be able to sleep in any sort of bed. But tonight she was more uneasy than usual, more tense after today's outstanding failure.

When she did finally get to sleep, it was an uneasy rest, despite the absence of dreams.

In the morning, a few minutes before seven, she woke to the subdued _ping_ of her phone. She picked it up to see a text message from Edith:

 _Waiting for flight to NY. Don't try and stop me._

Then, another _ping_ and a second message appeared below the first one:

 _You screwed up._

Mary groaned and buried her head back into the sagging pillow. It wasn't enough that she was berating herself for it, Edith just had to remind her. Did she not realize that she was feeling guilty for having messed up?

Edith probably didn't think that Mary was capable of having a bad conscience, but that was because Mary knew better than to show it. She didn't want to make things seem like the end of the world (even though now it felt worse than news of the apocalypse); if she did, her sisters would lose hope that things would turn out okay.

 _You're supposed to be the big sister_ , Mary often told herself. _You're supposed to be in charge. You're supposed to keep it together_.

As long as Sybil didn't leave her, though, then she wouldn't be completely on her own. Edith was a real help in the more difficult jobs, but they could manage (just barely) without her. If Sybil left her, on the other hand, Mary wouldn't be able to accomplish extractions from even the most simple-minded people. Extraction wasn't meant to be done solo, and a point man (or point woman, in Sybil's case) was a necessary asset to the team. She did the research for a job and made sure that every element was in place for an extraction. And more recently, she designed the dreams – she wasn't trained as a real architect, so there were always numerous flaws, but they functioned well. Most of the time. But despite the minor weak points, Sybil was the glue that held everything together, and Mary couldn't think of anyone she had worked better with.

Except for—

Just to be sure, Mary texted Sybil:

 _Are you still in Berlin?_

Sybil did not reply immediately. Mary got out of bed and went to splash water on her face, realizing then that a shower would do her a real service. While she was phoning for room service to deliver breakfast, Sybil's reply came:

 _Yes. Do you want to meet someplace?_

Mary didn't know if it would be safe to take the risk of being seen together. She hadn't heard back from Foyle Industries, so however badly Tony Foyle had reacted to her failure she wasn't sure. If he was in the mood to, he could trace them and have them arrested, detained, questioned about their involvement with their semi-legal business. They would prioritize capturing Mary – she was the extractor, the head of the team, the most valuable person – but they wouldn't let Sybil get off scot-free if they could help it.

 _Probably not safe yet. Edith's going to NYC. Don't leave without telling me where you're going_.

Even so, Mary was sure that Sybil wouldn't leave Berlin immediately as Edith had. Sybil wasn't the type of person to abandon the people who needed her, even when she was angry with them. She was afraid that Sybil did indeed hold some resentment towards Mary for failing the Merton Banking job: she had done everything she was supposed to, and Mary wouldn't dare blame her own mistakes on Sybil. But Sybil could be counted on to stay by her side – she rarely let her emotions get the better of her.

Sybil didn't respond back, and Mary figured that she had taken her last message as the end of the conversation. Until she was absolutely certain that Foyle Industries wouldn't hunt them down, they shouldn't risk having any more contact. She turned off her phone and shut it in the beside table drawer.

It was going to be a very dull, yet very tense holiday in Berlin, she knew. No contact with her family, stuck in a city she didn't know, and all the while looking over her shoulder to see if someone in a suit was waiting to grab her and haul her off to Tony Foyle.

How long could anyone possibly go on for like this?

* * *

For Edith, it seemed that things were finally taking a turn for the better at the airport.

She had left her hotel at six in the morning and taken a taxi to Berlin Tegel. She was able to catch the first flight out to LaGuardia, leaving at 8:15, and somehow managed to snag the last available business-class seat. Still furious at Mary, she had sent her short and bitter texts while waiting at the gate. Hopefully Foyle Industries wouldn't try to chase her down in New York City – they weren't as powerful in the States as they were in Europe. Even better, Edith thought, maybe Mary would finally get smart and not bother trying to convince her not to help her with one more job with another seedy company.

The failure of the Merton Banking extraction was the last straw for Edith. She had let Mary drag her along to every corner of the world, giving her the most tedious tasks, and forcing her into lucid dreams which, quite frankly, scared her. The world of the dream was strange and the projections in them often unpredictable. The only reason she never had outright panic attacks was that she was constantly reminding herself that it was only a dream – if she died, she'd wake up back in the real world.

Edith always assured herself that, if a job was successful, than it was worth doing the menial tasks like keeping the dreamers asleep and minding any angry projections. But in the past few jobs Mary had endangered them more than was necessary, and her most recent failure finally forced Edith to realize that it wasn't worth being part of the team anymore if they were going to involve themselves with dangerous corporations. She had tried to reason with Mary on not taking the job that Foyle Industries had given them – only about a quarter of Tony Foyle's operations were actually legal – but Mary had ignored her, saying some stupid reason like, "they'll give us a lot of money if we succeed."

Well, now they didn't have the money, but Edith didn't really care all that much about money. All she wanted really was to go home. And she honestly believed that, if it weren't for Mary, she might be able to.

New York City was a good compromise – her grandmother had an apartment there that Edith could stay in, even though Martha Levinson usually stayed in her Newport house during this time of the year. Edith could stay for as long as she wanted, happy to be by herself – until Mary came chasing her down and insisting that she help her with the next job that she got offered. And that was pretty likely to happen.

The plane was ready to begin letting the passengers board at 7:50, a bit later than was planned, and Edith soon settled comfortably in the wide plushy aisle seat. She took a melatonin tablet, her only plans on this flight to get a little sleep to avoid the jet lag. A few hours in the air was like a holiday in itself: no unexpected phone calls, no one except the flight attendants to periodically bother you, and hopefully a seat mate that didn't hog the armrest. This airline had a fairly comfortable business class, so Edith wouldn't need to worry about feeling crunched into a small space with a stranger.

"Sorry – excuse me?"

Edith looked up at the man standing by her seat. He was wearing what she thought was a very smart business suit, the type to be worn by someone who travelled first class regularly. But unlike many of the corporate people she had encountered, he didn't seem the haughty type – on the contrary, he seemed rather embarrassed about drawing her attention to him.

"Er … I have the window seat, and I … I don't want to push past you," the man said, smiling sheepishly. "Perhaps you could—?"

"Oh, yes, of course," Edith stammered. She unbuckled her seat belt and stepped into the aisle to let him into his seat.

"Thank you very much," the man nodded, giving her another smile as he slid past her with a cloth computer bag.

"Not at all," Edith said, returning the polite smile. She sat back down in her own seat. The man sitting beside her was by no means young, but he was still quite good-looking, like the old black-and-white movie stars that Edith liked. She wondered who he was – a businessman in an important position most likely, but definitely not someone who was famous. She wondered for a second if she had seen him from somewhere before – in a newspaper perhaps? – because the man's face did seem vaguely familiar. He wasn't a previous target of extraction, that was for certain.

For the next few minutes she watched the other passengers filed past her seat, moving further into the plane, as outside the window the sky grew brighter. The man sitting next to her was idly flipping through the magazine from the seat pocket, not really reading any of the pages. Edith felt like it would be half an hour more before they got into the air.

"Ma'am?" One of the flight attendants pushed past a few passengers and held something out to Edith – her passport. "I found this dropped in the galley."

Slightly surprised, Edith opened the passport to check that it was hers – it must have fallen out of her jacket pocket. "Oh! Well, thank you," she said, pulling out her bag from under the seat to put her passport in a more secure place. The flight attendant moved away.

"Good thing she noticed it," the man next to Edith remarked.

Edith nodded. "And good thing I left it someplace she could find."

The man shifted in his seat, looking like he wanted to say something to her, but it was another minute before he actually spoke. "I'm sorry, but … but I couldn't help but notice the name on your passport," he confessed. "Are you by any chance related to _the_ Crawley family?"

Edith froze, not daring to look back at the man. The man only sounded a bit curious about her name, but was there something else to his inquiry? Did he have something to do with Foyle Industries or Merton Banking? Had he been sent to follow her out of Berlin – or ordered to apprehend her?

"Uh … oh, I—" Edith murmured, "I know _of_ them. I know they do science or something." _Please don't make me say anything more, please just believe me_ —

"I see," the man nodded. "I simply assumed since you're flying first class and all, as well as your surname, that you might be related to them."

Edith shrugged. "Just a coincidence, I suppose." She allowed herself to look up at the man, immediately being drawn to his strikingly young eyes.

"Right," the man muttered. He leaned over and offered Edith his hand. "Anthony Strallan."

Edith took his hand and shook it. "Edith Crawley … but you knew that already."

Anthony Strallan chucked. "Well, I thought it was only fair that you knew my name as well. A pleasure to meet you, Ms Crawley."

"Pleasure to meet you, Mr Strallan," Edith murmured politely. She frowned as a thought suddenly struck her, and she looked harder at Anthony's face. She was recalling now that she _did_ recognize him, but not from any previous job or even someone from a company that had hired her. "Hang on …"

Anthony's confusion was evident, and now he was the one that looked like he had a secret he didn't want revealed. "Is there something wrong?"

"No, not wrong," Edith shook her head. "But … actually I just realized that I've seen you before. You're _Sir Anthony Strallan_!"

Anthony immediately turned a bright shade of rosy pink. "I, um …" he stuttered. "Well, yes … I am."

His name had been enough to jog Edith's memory – Sir Anthony Strallan, head of Locksley Engineering, a leading company in agricultural advancement and very close to becoming a household name. And Sir Anthony himself was an influential man – there was recent talk of installing him as Minister of Agriculture. He was, however, an extremely private man as well. Edith was surprised she recognized him from the papers, he rarely appeared in front of the cameras at all. Edith thought that he was the least egotistical business man that she had ever known. Most relished in their personal success, or at least were very proud of their legacy.

"It's alright," Edith said to alleviate Anthony's obvious embarrassment. "I won't go shouting it to the whole plane."

Sir Anthony breathed his relief. "Thank you. Although I highly doubt that anyone here will know me." The embarrassment slowly started fading from his face. "I'm sorry for not being completely honest before. I was in Berlin for some conferences, and it's times like those when I wish I wasn't part of such a big company. So I try and make it seem like I'm not all that well-known."

Edith found it amusing that he referred to himself as a 'part' of Locksley Engineering rather than the owner. "Do you go to Berlin often?"

"Once a year, usually," Sir Anthony shrugged. "What about you? Here for holiday?"

"Uh …" Edith looked at the reading lamps above her head for an answer. "Just a short thing for work, actually. Although I would have like very much to have stayed for a bit longer."

"What sort of work do you do?" Sir Anthony asked.

"Chemistry," Edith answered slowly.

It wasn't an outright lie, but that wasn't specifically what she had been doing. But someone like Sir Anthony didn't need to know about her involvement in extraction. Someone like him probably already knew about extraction, and with the talk about him possibly becoming Minister of Agriculture, it would be dangerous for her to admit that she played her part in stealing corporate secrets.

"That must be a lot of fun," Sir Anthony said, sounding genuinely fascinated by her answer. "I confess I don't have much of a head for the sciences."

"It's really only fun when you're doing what _you_ want, and not what other people are telling you to come up with," Edith said, hoping she didn't sound overly dismissive of Sir Anthony's comment. Chemistry once held a real spark of interest for her, but since now all she did with it was formulate the compounds for dream sharing, she sometimes found herself wishing that she had studied something else. When she went back to England – if she ever could – she would like to go back to school to discover a whole new passion for herself. Something in the arts perhaps, or creative writing …

At last, the doors to the airplane were closed and they began moving away from the gate. Edith did not feel the least bit sorry for leaving Sybil and Mary behind with much in the way of a proper goodbye. But if they absolutely needed her, they knew where to find her in New York City.

The plane wasted little time in getting onto the runway, even though the morning was already a busy time. Soon it was in the air, soaring high above the cloud cover that obscured the city below. Edith felt herself relax, grateful that the plane hadn't been stopped unexpectedly by security or that no delays had grounded them. She was glad to get out of Berlin and away from her sisters and the whole dream business. Now her own little holiday could begin when she could have her time to herself.

"So, what are you doing in New York?" she asked Sir Anthony. She hoped that he didn't think her too bold for starting another conversation, but he didn't seem to mind at all. In fact, his eyes lit up a bit more when he turned to her.

"Oh, just more business," he said indifferently. "The company went international a few years back, and I don't think I've taken a real holiday since then. But I suppose that's part of the deal anyway," he added hastily.

"Seems rather harsh that even the owner of a large company can't take a break," Edith said with sympathy.

Sir Anthony chuckled. "Maybe. But surely _you_ aren't going just for work either," he said. "There's so much excitement there, especially for young people."

"Actually, I am giving myself a bit of time off," Edith said. "Although I don't think I'll be seeking out too much excitement. It's more of … a time to lay low, so to speak."

"I see," Sir Anthony nodded. "And home is where?"

Edith didn't answer immediately. She shook her head as she tried to formulate her words. "I was born in Yorkshire, but … I haven't been back to England in … in a long while."

She looked away from Sir Anthony, instead staring out the window on the other side of the cabin. Every time she thought about just how long it had been since she had seen home, she either wanted to cry or get angry. She wouldn't be doing herself any favours if she were to do either of those things here on the plane.

Sir Anthony, luckily, seemed to notice that the talk of home had made her upset all of a sudden. "I'm sorry. That must be very hard. Sometimes it feels like I don't really have a place to call home either."

Knowing that Sir Anthony was saying that in an attempt to make her feel a bit better, Edith smiled. "But you have places in London and in the country," she pointed out.

"Yes, but they're … they're only places. They don't feel like proper homes," Sir Anthony confessed. "I'm not married, so I don't have a family to look forward to returning to when I get back from a trip." He stopped then, letting out an abashed sigh. "I'm sorry, I must sound like a sad old codger."

"No, it's … it's fine," Edith told him. Sir Anthony still looked embarrassed, especially since he had said all that to someone who was very much a stranger, but he leaned back in his chair with a more relaxed expression.

She didn't mind the things that he had said – in fact, she felt rather pleased that he, who had only known her since he got on the plane, had talked with her so casually. It wasn't at all the awkward silence that two strangers sitting next to each other often shared. He was friendly and warm, and she never would have guessed him to be the owner of one of the biggest agricultural companies in the world. And the fact that he was older didn't intimidate her at all. He acted like her equal. There were no warning bells going off in her head with this man.

He hadn't shown anything more dubious than a bit of curiosity when he saw her last name on her passport, so he most didn't know about her involvement in extraction. And he had been honest with her when she had realized that he was Sir Anthony Strallan instead of simply Mr Anthony Strallan – he hadn't attempted to conceal that fact. He trusted her.

So maybe she could afford to be honest with him as well.

Sir Anthony had turned away from her, clearly still mortified about spilling his thoughts to her, but Edith regained his attention by tapping him on the arm. "Yes?"

"You remember that you apologized for not being completely honest about who you were?" she asked slowly.

Sir Anthony nodded. "Yes. What about that?"

"Well, you assumed I was part of the Crawley family because you saw the name on my passport," she reminded him. "The truth is, I _am_ part of the Crawley family. My father was Robert Crawley."

Sir Anthony blinked, staring at her. "Oh … so you _are_ actually a Crawley?"

Edith nodded, hanging her head. His opinion of her surely wouldn't be so good now.

To her surprise, Sir Anthony let out a relieved chuckle. "Thank goodness. So it's not only me who tries to downplay who they really are."

It took Edith a moment to work out what he meant by that. "Oh yes, I – I don't like being recognized either." Her stomach untwisted a little bit, then promptly knotted up again as the plane bounced in the air. _If I don't get to New York in one breathing piece, I'm going to haunt Mary for the rest of her life_ , she said to herself.

"Yes, it is rather unsettling when that happens," Sir Anthony said, definitely taking notice of Edith's nervousness. "Especially when people ask you this and that about government policies that you have no idea even exist!" He stopped short just as he had a few minutes before. "I'm sorry, I'm babbling again," he mumbled in apology.

"Please stop saying you're sorry, you're hardly babbling!" Edith gave him a reassuring smile.

Sir Anthony's face was still the picture of embarrassment. "I think I'm only babbling because … well, you're the first person I've talked to all week that isn't another businessman or someone who is paid to take orders from me. It's such a relief to talk to someone who doesn't see me as a rich old boss. And you are a _very_ kind woman, dealing with an old codger like me."

"Don't call yourself that," Edith chided gently, at the same time blushing lightly at being called a 'kind woman.' Little compliments like that were few and far between. " _I_ think you're quite the gentleman."

"Really?" Sir Anthony seemed surprised. "You don't have to flatter me, I know I'm an old man, and probably very dull."

"Well, I disagree," Edith said decisively.

Sir Anthony didn't put up any more protest – he probably figured that it would be futile to argue with her. "You _are_ a very kind woman," he repeated, and Edith's cheeks flushed again.

The plane jolted around again, shaking the entire cabin, then thankfully levelled out. The flight attendant announced that it was alright to move about the cabin, when the beverage and food carts would come by, the usual rundown of long international flights. Edith pulled the complimentary pillow and blanket (or as she called them, the free static electricity generators) out of the plastic wrap; all she wanted on this flight was a nice drink and hopefully an undisturbed nap. Although she would not object if Sir Anthony wanted to talk with her a bit more.

The same flight attendant who had found Edith's passport was the one going around the business class section. "Would you like something to drink, ma'am?" she asked when she came to Edith's row.

"Can I get a gin and tonic, please?" Edith requested.

The flight attendant jotted that down on her notepad. "And you, sir?" she asked Sir Anthony.

"Same – a gin and tonic, please," Sir Anthony said.

As the flight attendant turned around to the row across from them, Edith glanced at Sir Anthony. "Is that your usual choice of drink?"

"It is," Sir Anthony nodded. "Yours too?"

Edith smirked. "Another thing in common. Besides preferring not to be singled out in public."

They didn't have to wait long for their drinks to arrive, and Edith handed Sir Anthony his drink before taking hers. "Thank you," he said. He kept his glass suspended in the air, as if he were about to make a toast.

"To a happy time in New York," he said. Edith giggled quietly as she clinked her glass with his.

After finishing off her drink, Edith plumped the pillow behind her head. "If it's alright with you, I'm going to try and get some sleep," she said to Sir Anthony. "These long flights leave me terribly groggy."

"Of course," Sir Anthony said.

Edith wrapped the blanket around herself and turned down the air blowing directly into her face. But as her hand went to the button on her arm rest to recline her seat, Sir Anthony's hand on hers made her freeze.

"Wait – before you go to sleep … I want to ask you something before I forget," he muttered hesitantly.

Edith couldn't tell in his face if what he was going to ask was just an innocent question or something she should be worried about. Her gut was telling her it was going to be the latter. "What is it?"

"I'm sorry about asking after something so private … but does the Crawley family still have anything to do with dream sharing? Specifically extraction?"

Edith felt her face pale and her mouth go dry, despite the lingering taste of her gin and tonic. She stared at Sir Anthony, clutching the blanket tightly in her hands. The warning bells that had been absent before were now clanging madly in her head, telling her to do something, anything but sit there, frozen. Was everything that she had assumed about him wrong?

"Why are you asking about that?" she whispered, eyes widening. "Extraction is illegal—"

"But that doesn't stop anyone from seeking it out," Sir Anthony said. "And I've heard from good authority that the Crawley Extraction Team is one of the best – if not _the_ best – in the business. And the job I'm offering can only be completed by the best." His eyes were practically pleading for Edith to hear him out. No doubt her alarm was showing in her face.

"You want us to do an extraction?" Edith asked softly.

Sir Anthony appeared to hesitate. "Not an extraction exactly … "

"Either way, you'll have to talk to Mary instead of me." Whatever Sir Anthony wanted from the team, Edith didn't want any part of it. She was final on her stance that she wouldn't go back to Mary or Sybil to help them with a job. "She's still in Berlin. I'm not a part of the team anymore."

Sir Anthony's face fell. "I see. But can you tell her that I have a job offer for her, at least?"

Edith shook her head. "I don't know where she's staying, and she's likely turned off international services on her phone. And she doesn't have a permanent email address either." She didn't think it would be smart to tell Sir Anthony that the reason Mary would be nearly unreachable was that Foyle Industries was likely tracking Mary.

"I have people that can find her wherever she is in Berlin—" Sir Anthony said simply.

"Then you can tell her about this job yourself," Edith said, cringing at how snappish she sounded. "I'm not involved with that whole business anymore. Whatever it is, it doesn't concern me."

With a glum expression, Sir Anthony nodded. "Alright. Thank you."

Just from seeing the look on his face, Edith regretted being so dismissive to him once he had brought up the issue of extraction. She just _had_ to let her annoyance get out of hand now, didn't she? She never thought twice about lashing out at Mary, but to snap at a stranger – and one so nice as Sir Anthony – she berated herself having known better. _Not such a kind woman now, are you_ , she thought.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. Then she added quickly, "I'm sorry that I couldn't be more help to you."

"It's perfectly alright," Sir Anthony replied. "You've, er … you've given me a place to start."

Edith waited for him to say something else, but that seemed to be the end of the discussion. She turned away from him and let the seat recline a respectable level (there was someone sitting behind her) before she closed her eyes, hugging the fuzzy blanket close to her.

Despite taking the melatonin tablet earlier, she didn't feel any sense of relaxation. Though she had her eyes closed, her mind was still running riot. Only twenty minutes in the air, and already she felt like her holiday was sullied thanks to the mention of extraction.

The whole ruddy dream business … why did it have to follow her even when she had put it behind her? She was done with it, and yet she couldn't get a break. She just _had_ to be seated next to someone who knew about the work the Crawleys really did, someone who also had a ready job offer. How unlucky could she possibly be?

And she couldn't help but wonder: what _did_ Sir Anthony want from Mary and Sybil, if not exactly an extraction? The instructions from the people hiring them were usually simple: infiltrate the target's mind, find their secrets, and relay them back to whoever wanted to know them. That was how extraction worked, and Edith couldn't remember a job which deviated from that simple procedure.

Even though she was still unbelievably angry at Mary, Edith hoped she wouldn't knowingly take on a job that she knew she couldn't handle. Their situation was already undesirable – they didn't need to learn just how much worse it could get.


	4. An Impossible Job

_Apologies for the late update, but I'm so glad that everyone is enjoying it! The real story is about to kick off, but it's going to be a bit angsty in this chapter (by angsty I mean_ lots _of sisterly arguing). And even though we still haven't seen a few key characters ... I promise you, we will soon! :D So stay tuned, and as always, reviews are very much appreciated!_

* * *

Chapter Three – An Impossible Job

After three days of not hearing anything from anybody – neither her sisters nor Foyle Industries – Mary's stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch when she heard someone knocking on her hotel room door.

Her first thought was that Foyle Industries had finally located her and sent people to kidnap her. It was late at night – _the perfect time to be stolen away_ , she thought. She knew that Tony Foyle wasn't pleased, to put it lightly, at her failure, despite not hearing a word from him. And he was the type of man to make his displeasure quite obvious.

But when she crept towards the door and looked through the peephole, it was Sybil's face that she saw. Feeling a mixture of relief, confusion, and a bit of annoyance, she opened the door.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, frowning at her sister.

Sybil didn't seem all that surprised at being greeted so crudely. "I'm not here to make you feel more guilty than you probably already are," she answered, "if that's what you assumed I was here for."

"That's Edith's job," Mary said dryly. "How did you know where to find me?"

Sybil simply shrugged. "You always go for the fanciest hotel in town."

Mary rolled her eyes. "Well, I don't have to sacrifice comfort just because I'm a fugitive."

"But it does make you a lot easier to locate," Sybil said.

Mary turned around and walked back into the bedroom, with Sybil following and closing the door behind her. "And where are you staying? A place on the outskirts with faulty plumbing?"

"A reasonably-priced hotel near the airport, actually," Sybil retorted. "I'm not cheap, but I don't spoil myself."

As kids travelling with their parents, they always stayed at four or five-star hotels, and apparently Mary still had the mindset of requiring the only the best. It was hardly a lucky guess that she would have gone straight for the Hotel Adlon. Sybil was the opposite, as she asserted she was content with any place that had a working toilet and wifi.

Mary looked back at Sybil, noticing her large backpack hanging from one shoulder and the travel bag in her other hand. Everything she had were stuffed into those two bags. "Are you leaving?" she asked, trying to hide the disappointment in her tone.

Sybil nodded. "Yeah. And I think you should to."

"Why? I haven't heard anything from—" Mary stopped herself, all of a sudden concerned. "Wait … did _you_ hear something from Foyle?"

Sybil shook her head. "No, I haven't heard anything from him. But I got an email from … from …" She seemed to have a hard time spitting out the name, but the look from Mary goaded her into finally revealing it. "It was from Larry Grey."

"What?" Mary exclaimed. "Wh – how – first off, how in the world does he have your email address?"

"I don't know – maybe he got it when I was doing the research at Merton Banking," Sybil said, clearly surprised as well that Larry Grey had gotten ahold of her email address. "I thought I had deleted it anyway. But I got an email from him early this morning … he knows we attempted an extraction on his dad."

Mary froze for a moment, trying to sort out in her head what Sybil had just told her. Sybil pulled out her phone, presumably to show her the email that Larry had sent her. "I have it here, if you want to read what he sent me. A lot of it is him gloating though – you though you could outwit me, you won't get away with this. That sort of thing."

"Well, it's marginally better than him being a little perv," Mary muttered.

"Actually, he _is_ a little bit … er, crude," Sybil added. Larry Grey could always be depended on to be lewd at the most inappropriate of times, though she was certain he had used that sort of language because he was writing to _her_ specifically.

Mary grimaced slightly. "Then just tell me – did he say how he found out? Did his father mention that he had weird dreams or something?"

"No, it was—" Sybil faltered, obviously afraid of Mary's reaction to what she was about to reveal. Mary stared hard at her, pressing her to finally spill it. "Tony Foyle told him."

Mary groaned. "Oh God … shit … shit, this is _not_ good!"

She turned away from Sybil, rubbing her face with her hands. So Tony Foyle had given them another powerful enemy in the form of Larry Grey; that was their punishment for failure. It wouldn't matter so much if Richard Grey knew – he was a passive man, and probably would let the whole matter go since the extraction had failed – but with the real Larry Grey being aware, things had just become a lot more dangerous for everyone on the team. Now, not only did they have to worry about being apprehended by people from Foyle Industries, Larry Grey had likely sent people from Merton Banking to find them too.

And if they stayed in Berlin for even just one more night, they'd be sitting ducks. Their cue had come; it was time to disappear.

"So … I think we should get on a plane to somewhere, wherever you decide," Sybil said. "Tonight, preferably."

"Yeah … yeah, you're absolutely right," Mary muttered, bringing herself out of her shock. She had never bothered to fully unback her bag, so she stuffed what clothes were strewn across the floor back in, then brushed past Sybil to get her toiletries. The machine case was still under the bed, and she pulled that out as well.

"Where are we going to go?" Sybil asked, watching Mary stride across the room as she collected her stuff. "Merton Banking and Foyle Industries must have people everywhere."

"Not in Rio," Mary said. "We'll lay low for a couple of weeks, maybe sniff out another job when things calm down."

Sybil quirked an eyebrow. "Will they ever?"

Mary understood Sybil's frustration about their situation, but after several days of guilting herself for her failure, she could hardly stand it anymore. She threw down the sock she was holding and shot Sybil another sour glare. "Look, I'm sorry I screwed everything up during the job. I'm sorry that you're pissed. I'm sorry that now we've got two powerful corporations hunting us down, corporations that want to send us back to England so we can be arrested, and we'll most likely go to prison for the rest of our lives—!"

"Mary!" Sybil shouted, forcing Mary to stop short. "Please, just … just calm down."

She watched Mary take in a few shaky breaths, though her expression remained tense. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that," she apologized. "And it's not just your fault, I made that really crap design—"

"It _is_ my fault," Mary interrupted. "The design wasn't that bad, and I had you doing too much. I underestimated Richard Merton."

"I don't think anyone could have predicted how crazy his projections would get," Sybil said. "Have you figured out why the projection of Larry Grey was so … advanced?"

Mary shook her head. "I still have no idea. His subconscious wasn't trained, that showed in your research, and all his projections would have been militarized if that was the case. But the projection of Larry …" She sighed, at a complete loss for an answer. "I don't know. Maybe because he's Richard's son, it was a lot stronger and more like the real Larry. But I'm just not completely sure. All I'm hoping is that something like that won't happen again."

She stuffed the last of her things into her bags and zipped them closed. Hoisting the strap of one over her shoulder, she picked up the other and the machine by the handles. "Let's go now," she said, pushing past Sybil who was still rooted to the spot. "We can catch a red eye out of here if we hurry—"

"Mary, wait."

Breathing a sigh of annoyance, Mary stopped and turned around. Sybil was still standing in the middle of the room, as if she wasn't the one that suggested that they needed to get out of Berlin as soon as possible. "What now?"

"I just think we need to talk more about what our plan is," Sybil said carefully, wanting to approach the subject with care. "I mean, besides getting out of Berlin and waiting for Tony Foyle and Merton Banking to lose interest in us."

Mary knew what Sybil was talking about without her needing to clarify – she was having doubts about extraction, and more specifically her ability to keep doing it. "I'm sorry, do you have a different plan in mind?" she snapped.

"No, I don't," Sybil mumbled. "But … can we really keep going like this? I don't think Edith's going to come back, and now that it's just the two of us—"

"You think I'm going to fail again," Mary finished in a rather accusatory tone.

Sybil nodded sheepishly. "Maybe what happened down in the dream was just an anomaly, but I don't think we should take any more risks if we can help it."

"Do you want to leave too?" Mary asked, hardly hearing what Sybil was actually saying. "Do you want to give up on the one thing that might get us back home?"

"We've been doing this for two years!" Sybil shouted. "And I don't feel any closer to getting home! We're just … we're just scrounging around at this point, hoping that no one's going to try and cart us off to prison!"

"Well, what other plan do you have in mind?" Mary shouted back. "Because unless you know of something else that might give us the chance to go home, _I suggest you shut up_!"

Sybil let out a loud groan of exasperation. "You always have to have the last word, don't you?"

"Yes, I do!" Mary retorted. "Because I'm the one in charge, and I'm the one who's—!"

She was cut short by the phone ringing. Both she and Sybil glanced at the phone beside the bed, ringing methodically every three seconds. Mary dropped her bags and went over to the nightstand, but she hesitated to pick up the phone, her hand hovering over the clunky receiver.

"Do you think it's—?" Sybil started to ask, but Mary shushed her.

Fingers trembling, she picked up the ringing phone. "Hello?" she asked in a whisper.

"Miss Crawley?"

Mary recognized the voice: it was only the receptionist at the front desk. "Yes?" she said in a louder tone.

"Your ride is downstairs, and we just wanted to remind you to check out when you—"

"My ride?" Mary frowned. "I didn't … who – who ordered it?" She looked nervously towards Sybil, who returned an equally concerned expression. Could it be Foyle Industries or Merton Banking come to take them away, albeit in a more subtle fashion?

"The name that was put down is Strallan. Just Strallan," the woman replied. "Do you recognize it?"

Mary wasn't sure if the name rang any bells for her, but she was sure she had never met anyone in person with that name. Was it some sort of alias that Tony Foyle or Larry Grey were using. She tried to think quickly about what to do. Behind her, Sybil was biting her lip as she looked out the window, though from where the room was located there wasn't much of a street view.

"Um … I'm going to come down now and check out, and I'll see about the car," Mary said finally. "I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Very good, ma'am," the receptionist replied, hanging up. Mary put the phone back down and quickly walked across the room to pick up her things again.

"Do you think it's them?" Sybil asked, walking towards the door.

"I don't know." Mary fished around her jacket pocket for her room key. "Listen to me carefully: we'll go downstairs together, but I'll go into the lobby first, and you wait by the lifts. If I don't come back to give you the okay in five minutes or you see me get into a car, then get out through another exit and go to the airport, or the train station, or wherever else you can go to get out of the country."

"On my own?" Sybil asked as she pushed past Mary and stepped out into the corridor.

Mary shut off the room lights and closed the door after her. "Yes, by yourself."

"Are you crazy? I'm not going to leave you," Sybil insisted.

"Honestly Sybil, before tonight I had no idea you wanted to go to prison so badly," Mary said sardonically. "Because that's what _will_ happen if Tony Foyle or Larry Grey catch us."

She stalked down the hall towards the lifts, a disgruntled Sybil trailing behind her. She understood that Mary would prefer her to stay out of prison if she could help it, but it wasn't in her character to abandon her family just to save her own skin.

Neither of them spoke during the ride down to the lobby, and went it arrived at the ground level Sybil did just as Mary instructed her: she hung awkwardly by the lifts while Mary entered the lobby, carefully looking around for a figure that might make her want to start running in the other direction. Late in the evening it wasn't at all crowded, just a few businessmen shaking hands before going to the bar or sitting in the couches with a laptop or newspaper in hand.

"Miss Crawley, ma'am?"

Mary looked over to the receptionist at the front desk, the same one who had called her minutes earlier. She shifted her luggage as she walked to the desk, hoping she could conceal the silver case of the machine from anyone hanging about in the lobby.

"Is the person who ordered the car here?" she asked as she slid her room key across the marble countertop.

"Yes, he is," the receptionist answered. "Mr Strallan?"

Mary looked over her shoulder to the person whom the receptionist had beckoned to. The man, Mr Strallan, looked like any other businessman, and he seemed about as threatening as a puppy. He came towards the front desk, holding out his hand to Mary. "Miss Crawley?"

Giving him a polite but stiff smile, Mary shook his hand. "Mr Strallan." She told herself to stay vigilant, but her hunch was that he had nothing to do with either Foyle Industries or Merton Banking … which only made her more confused as to what he actually wanted with her.

"The car's waiting outside," Mr Strallan said. "Would you like me to take your bags for you?"

Mary tightened her grip around the handle on the machine case. "No thank you, I can manage," she said. "But can you wait just a second? My sister is here too, actually."

"Alright," Mr Strallan nodded. "I'll just go outside and stand by the car."

He did just that, going through the glass doors at the front of the lobby. Mary glanced back towards the lifts where Sybil was still standing, making herself look like she was waiting for someone and getting impatient. A couple of people getting into the lifts glanced curiously at her.

" _Sybil_!" Mary hissed loudly, motioning with her hands for Sybil to get over to where she was. Sybil jolted out of her act and hurried towards Mary.

"Who was that?" she asked.

"I'm not completely sure, but I don't think he's going take us to Foyle or Larry Grey," Mary said in a low voice.

"Right," Sybil said slowly. "So who _is_ he?"

Mary shrugged, the strap of one of her bags digging into her shoulder; her arms were already getting sore from her heavy things. "I guess we'll find out soon, but I really don't think he's someone we should be too worried about."

"I hope you're right," Sybil said. She didn't like playing the skeptic, but recent events were making her question Mary's perspective on certain things.

Mary bit back the acid retort on the tip of her tongue and led the way out of the lobby. Mr Strallan was standing next to a black car of German make, expensive-looking but inconspicuous. The driver climbed out of the car and opened the boot. "Your bags?"

Sybil handed her things to the driver, and Mary gave him her bags too – except for the machine case. She'd rather have it in her sight if she was getting into a car with an unfamiliar man, as non-threatening as he seemed. She noticed how Mr Strallan was looking at it curiously, and she wondered if he knew what it contained.

All three of them slid into the back seat of the car, Mr Strallan sitting across from the Crawley sisters with his back to the driver. He turned on the dim yellow interior lights, illuminating the black-leather seats. Mary held onto the machine case as it rested in her lap, her fingers curled rigidly around the sides as though she feard Mr Strallan would snatch it out of her hands without warning. She heard the door locks click and the car rumble to life as the driver steered it onto the street. Any chance to run away was now forfeit.

"I'm sorry for being so … unexpected," Mr Strallan began apologetically. "I didn't want to discuss anything over telephone or email in case someone was tracking us. And as I understand, you've limited your means of communications while in Berlin."

Mary had a hundred questions itching to be answered, but the first thing she blurted out was, "How do you know that?"

"I think I ought to explain from the beginning," Mr Strallan said. "I don't know if you've heard of me or my company, but I'm the head of Locksley Engineering. My real name is Sir Anthony Strallan."

He seemed to cringe at the mention of his own title, but it was enough to remind Sybil of who he was. "I have heard of you, actually," she told him.

Sir Anthony lifted his brow. "Have you indeed?"

Sybil nodded. "I read an article in _The Guardian_ that you might be made Minister of Agriculture."

Mary had heard that too, and she was vaguely familiar with Locksley Engineering. She never paid much attention to it however, since she always supposed that a company that specialized in farming machinery would never have a real need for extraction. Now she was getting the feeling that she was about to be proved wrong.

"Well, I must say I'm surprised that young people know me at all," Sir Anthony responded. "Anyway, I was actually leaving Berlin for New York a few days ago, and on the flight I was sitting next to your sister, Edith."

Mary lifted a brow. "Lucky her," she muttered under her breath.

"She was very nice," Sir Anthony went on, "a very sweet young woman. I recognized her last name, and she did confirm what I asked about … about what it is that you do. She was rather reluctant to give much more information besides where you were, though I don't blame her for wanting to keep some things to herself. But as soon as we landed at LaGuardia I contacted some people to track you – specifically you, Mary – and then I got the next flight back to Berlin."

"That must have been rough – two transatlantic flights one after the other," Sybil remarked sympathetically.

"You tracked me?" Mary asked, looking hard at Sir Anthony sitting across from her. "What do you want from me?"

"I have a job offer," Sir Anthony replied. "But I feel that I should say it up front: it's not quite a straightforward extraction. I'm not looking to steal another corporation's secrets."

Mary frowned. No one before Sir Anthony had ever suggested doing something other than extraction. "I'm not sure what you're getting at. If it's not extraction, then what do you want us to do?"

"I'll try and explain it the best I can," Sir Anthony said. "You'll want to take a look at this first." He reached into the pocket of a briefcase sitting on the floor of the car, pulling a file out and handing it to Mary. She opened the folder and quickly scanned the first page.

"Rose MacClare, age twenty. Heir to the Flintshire energy conglomerate," she murmured as she read. "Flintshire … isn't that the one that acquired the Duneagle company?"

"The very same," Sir Anthony declared. "Flintshire labels itself as a energy corporation, although in the last ten years it has gained equal power in the agricultural sphere. They control sixty-percent of the world's agricultural output, most of it in India, and nearly half of the world's energy supply."

"Blimey," Sybil muttered. She glanced over at the file in Mary's hands. "Rose MacClare looks pretty young to have anything to do with such a big business."

Mary flipped to another page in the file, which gave more details about the Flintshire empire. From the way the file was written, it made the corporation seem like they could control the world's resources. She had heard about it certainly, the name popped up often enough in the news, but she never imagined it was quite this massive or powerful.

"I'm guessing they're your biggest competitor," she inferred, looking up at Sir Anthony.

"They're everyone's competitor," Sir Anthony said, "but yes, I would say they are a rival – indeed, a very problematic one. However, I'm not asking you take on this job for any personal reason. I believe that, if you succeed, the entire world will benefit."

Mary arched an eyebrow. Most times corporate espionage was done solely for the personal gain of one company. "How so?"

"Flintshire's growth has been exponential in the past decade, but it has failed to modernize. That failure, I believe, will set the world back," Sir Anthony explained. "Each company within the conglomerate has grown so powerful by now that they have the regulators in their pockets. Soon they'll be able to dictate policy, control world economies, perhaps eventually become a new superpower. Unless they change how they operate, they may inadvertently create an environmental and economic catastrophe."

Sybil looked as though Sir Anthony had pretty much confirmed that the apocalypse would happen within the week. "Sounds like a proper corporation."

"Who says they won't change how they do things?" Mary asked. "Rose MacClare, she's the heir to it all – couldn't she possibly modernize the company when she takes over?"

"She's spent her whole life being groomed as the company's successor, but in such a way that she wouldn't deviate far from how her parents have run things," Sir Anthony told her. "And there are some sources that state she doesn't have much interest in running it. She would probably just have other people who would run things the exact same way they always have."

Mary flipped back to the page with Rose MacClare's information. "So this is where we come in, correct?"

Sir Anthony nodded. "The current head of the corporation, Rose's father, is currently in poor health, and so Rose will probably inherit the corporation very soon. She must be persuaded to break up her family's empire almost as soon as she has control of it. It will be going against her own interest, even though she wants very little to do with the corporation. But the world _needs_ her to break up the Flintshire conglomerate if it is to advance to the next decade."

Mary took a moment to think through what Sir Anthony was asking of her. "You want us to try and give her this idea – an idea that goes against her own self-interest, an idea that may or may not stick or that she'll even act upon?"

To her, Sir Anthony coming to them with this 'job offer' sounded like someone asking a landscaper to fix the plumbing. They were extractors – they stole ideas, they didn't give them to someone. And she had no idea if such a thing were even possible; even it an idea was planted subconsciously, someone could always figure who might have given it to them. It was ludicrous to even suppose it could be done.

"Nobody I know of has ever done something like that before – and if they have it probably wasn't successful," she said. "That sort of thing is impossible to fake."

"But – but if it's done subconsciously, then surely—?" Sir Anthony stammered.

"With all due respect, Sir Anthony," Mary said curtly, "I'm the one here who knows best how the subconscious works, and I can tell you for certain that it is most likely impossible. You can't just go into somebody's mind, tell them the idea, and expect it to stick that way. And to manipulate things in such a way that will allow them to come up with that same idea on their own … it's just far too complex to actually execute."

She closed the file and handed it back to Sir Anthony. Looking somewhat crestfallen, he sighed, clearly dismayed at how quickly Mary had rejected his proposal. "Are you sure you cannot at least attempt it?"

"Best case scenario, the subject doesn't realize what has happened and is completely unchanged," Mary said. "Worst case, they know exactly what has happened and trace whomever attempted to alter their mind. I don't suppose you're already aware of it, but we've got two major corporations attempting to find us so they can send us back to Britain, which will result in us being arrested almost as soon as we touch ground there. We do _not_ need a third powerhouse added to that equation."

The whole time Mary argued with Sir Anthony on the matter of the job he had presented, Sybil slouched quietly in the leather seat, her eyes darting between the two other passengers. From her point of view, Sir Anthony looked like a dog being scolded as Mary talked to him like she was intentionally hoping to crush his hopes. Sybil felt a bit sorry for the man; he didn't seem like the normal greedy, secretive corporate chief, and Mary's lengthy rejection really did seem to distress him.

The thing was, Sybil had to admit, Mary did have a point – why attempt something so complex, something that no one had ever attempted in the past, something that was barely possibly even in theory? And of course she would reject even trying to do what Sir Anthony was asking her, especially since she had just failed spectacularly at something she was supposed to be one of the best at. Now that Edith had effectively defected from the team, it was just the two of them, and how could they manage such a complex task by themselves. It would be like trying to build a skyscraper with a two-person team.

Glancing outside the window, Sybil could see the yellow and white lights of the urban landscape, and in the distance she thought she could see the control tower of the airport. The car seemed to be speeding towards the airport, though what exactly Sir Anthony had planned out he hadn't yet revealed. As long as they got out of Berlin, she supposed, their chances of being caught by Tony Foyle or – she shuddered internally at the thought – Larry Grey would be lessened.

She had droned out their conversation for the last few minutes, but Mary's most recent outburst shifted her focus back to what was going on between her and Sir Anthony.

"Sir Anthony, I really am sorry to have to refuse your job offer, but as important as you seem to think it is, it is simply an unrealistic idea, _not_ possible, and I _will not_ be the one to attempt it!" Mary practically growled. "Now, if you don't mind telling your driver to take us to the airport as quickly as he can …"

Sir Anthony, probably wishing he could sink into the leather seat, nodded and tapped on the window between him and the driver. "Airport please, as quick as you can."

The car immediately turned off at the nearest exit. Mary sat fuming, grasping the machine case so hard her knuckles turned white. Sybil didn't say anything, knowing that bringing up the subject again would only send Mary into a frenzy, but she tried to give Sir Anthony a sympathetic smile. The man didn't see it, since he had turned his attention to the cars they passed on the road.

They entered the airport in a matter of minutes; however, the car didn't turn onto the lane heading for the departures terminal. It stopped outside a long grey building in a car park that was empty except for one vehicle.

"Just wait here for a moment, please," Sir Anthony said as he opened the car door and climbed out. Mary's mouth was open as if she wanted to snap at him again, but she didn't get the chance as Sir Anthony shut the car door behind him and hastily walked through the door to the building.

"You know, you sounded pretty rude to him," Sybil muttered.

Mary rolled her eyes, letting out a low groan of annoyance. "Really, Sybil—" she started to say.

"Don't 'really Sybil' me," Sybil cut her off. "You didn't have to be so harsh on him. Just because he doesn't know what you do about dream-sharing … he did sound hopeful that we'd take the job."

"Well, I'm not going to do anything I know is beyond my capability," Mary retorted. "And you should understand that."

"Of course I understand that," Sybil said. "But Sir Anthony didn't know that, and what good reason did you have for just snapping at him?"

Mary raised her eyes to the roof of the car, shifting the machine case in her lap. "Look Sybil, I'm not in the mood to argue with you—"

"Because you know I'm right," Sybil shot back.

Whipping her head around to meet Sybil with an intense glare, Mary spat out, "If _you_ want to take the job on yourself, go ahead. I won't stop you. But I'm not going to have anything to do with it, no matter what _he_ says."

"Even with what he said about Flintshire creating an environmental and economic catastrophe?"

"They always try to make things seem like a bigger deal than they actually are," Mary explained. "I highly doubt it's as bad as all that. It's probably just to make him sound like the sympathetic party."

"He sounded honest to me."

Mary muttered, "God, Sybil," as she rubbed tired eyes. "Listen, it's out of the question. We'll have nothing more to do with Sir Anthony, and I'll tell him once he comes back from whatever he's doing."

Again, Mary decided when the conversation was at an end. Sybil sighed, slumping back in her seat again. It was impossible to argue with her: they were both stubborn, but Mary somehow always had the upper hand, and that let her win most times. Sybil hated fighting with the one family member she had close to her, but Mary's agitation wasn't making it easy to avoid a quarrel.

A few minutes later, Sir Anthony returned to the car. He tapped the glass as he climbed into the backseat, telling the driver, "Lot 5," and the driver started up the car again.

"I've secured you use of a private plane that my company owns," Sir Anthony told them. "Tell the pilot where you want to go, they'll file the plan en route."

Mary nodded. "Thank you," she said stiffly. She glanced at Sybil before muttering, "I, um … I'm rather sorry at having to refuse your job offer."

Sir Anthony shrugged, though it was clear he was disappointed. "It's alright. I might find someone else."

Mary knew he wouldn't. If anyone had the best of succeeding in Sir Anthony's task, it was her – even if that chance was next to nothing.

"And I can swear to you that I won't say anything to Flintshire about this," she added. "This conversation will never have happened by tomorrow morning."

"Well, I must say I'm at least relieved to hear that," Sir Anthony muttered.

The car drove around the tarmac, swerving around the white and red lights in the ground until it stopped close to a private jet. Sir Anthony pointed to it. "It's just over there. Good luck to you both."

"Thank you," Sybil murmured.

Mary wordlessly opened the door on her side and climbed out, walking around to the boot of the car which flipped open automatically. She and Sybil pulled their luggage out and set the bags down on the ground. The jet was already ready and waiting for them, the stairway already lowered and the lights on the wings blinking.

"We still going to Rio?" Sybil asked.

"I don't see why we shouldn't go ahead with our original plan," Mary answered as she hoisted the strap of one of her bags onto her shoulder. She pulled up the handle of her suitcase and started off towards the jet.

But Mary and Sybil barely a few steps away from the car before they heard:

"Wait – Miss Crawley!"

Both of them stopped, turning back towards the car. Sir Anthony had climbed out of the car and taken a few steps towards them, though there was still a distance between them.

"Miss Crawley," he called out to Mary, "what if I could offer you something that would make you change your mind?"

"There isn't anything that will make me change my mind," Mary said, and turned away again.

"Not even the chance to go home?"

That stopped Mary in her tracks. Those words, _the chance to go home_ , were the ones she had wanted to hear for years, but even so it sounded too good to be true. "You can't do anything about that."

"I believe I can," Sir Anthony said.

That still wasn't enough to move Mary. In fact, she felt offended that Sir Anthony would try to bribe her with something that he couldn't deliver. "Did Edith tell you all about that too? Did she explain _why_ we can't go home? If we set one foot in any country in the U.K., we'll go to jail for the rest of our lives."

"I understand your situation well enough, and if you are successful in changing Rose MacClare's mind, I will work towards clearing your names," Sir Anthony said.

"And if you can't? What then?"

"Then I suppose we'd settle on something else," Sir Anthony replied. "But I am confident that I can clear your names and get you back home."

Mary weighed the offer in her head: if they could accomplish the complex task of altering somebody's mind, and if Sir Anthony could clear the charges against them, then they could go home. Right now, the costs seemed to outweigh the benefits, but she felt like she couldn't walk away from someone who was giving them the chance to return home. No one else had offered them that, and odds were that no one would do the same soon.

She felt Sybil's hand on her arm. "Mary, can we talk about this? The two of us?"

Mary looked back at the jet, then at Sir Anthony standing by the car. "I don't know if there's time."

That apparently didn't matter to Sybil. "I know what I said about you not doing anything more complex than an extraction, but … Mary, this is our chance to go home!"

Mary sighed, feeling like she was about disappoint her sister again, and that was the last thing she wanted to do. "I know how much you want to go home, but he's asking for too much. I just … I know I can't do it, and like I said before I can't take that risk."

Deep down, she wanted to return home as much as anyone. This offer was the light appearing at the end of a tunnel – only a pinprick right now, but it was finally there. But at the same time, she wanted to keep being realistic, and she didn't want to do anything that would get anyone's hopes up.

"But if we had the full team? I just know if we had everyone with us—"

At the mention of the full team Mary's startled, and she cut Sybil off with a hoarse, "No!" She shook her head, mumbling, "No, we can't do that. They won't come back, not for this."

"You don't know that," Sybil tried to convince her. "If we told them that this job was our chance – everyone's chance – to go back home, I know they'd come back."

"How can you be sure?" Mary asked, aghast. "Even if the others did agree to help us with the job, who knows if that job is even possible of completing? If we don't complete it, we're no closer to home and we'll be in even more trouble than we already are."

Sybil reached out and touched the back of Mary's hand. Her eyes were pleading for her to understand her. "Mary, if we don't take this job, we lose this chance to finally go home, probably the only chance we'll ever get. I know you want to keep being realistic about things, but … don't you think it's time to take a risk that might be worth it? If we take on the job, we'll have a better chance of going home than if we walk away." Her eyes were glassy with moisture, and she started blinking rapidly. "Please Mary … we can't keep running. Don't throw this away because you're afraid."

"I'm not—" Mary started to say, but she stopped herself. Sybil was right: if she threw away this opportunity, that was it for them. Their entire lives would continue as they did now, or else they'd be lived out in a cramped, isolated prison cell. That wasn't how Mary wanted her life to be, and certainly not how she wanted anyone else's to be. She knew she would regret it to the end of her days if she walked away from this, and that, on top of the rest of her preexisting regret and guilt, she knew she couldn't bear.

She turned back towards Sir Anthony, still waiting expectantly by the car. "How long do we have to prepare for the job?"

Anyone could see Sir Anthony's delight from all the way across the airfield. "Plenty," he said as he regained his composure. "I'd prefer it to be done before Rose assumes control of the company, but as far as I know about her father's illness, that won't be for a while."

Mary nodded, glad that there wasn't going to be a set deadline to add to the pressure. "We'll have to assemble the rest of the team first, but you'll be needed as well for the preparations."

"Of course. I'll be available any time you need me."

Mary took ahold of her suitcase and started off towards the plane, but Sir Anthony calling out to her halted her again.

"Do you by any chance – I'm sorry, but will Edith be coming back to the team?" he asked.

Mary was surprised at this. "I don't know. She's really not …" She was about to say that Edith probably wanted nothing to do with the team any more, but Sir Anthony sounded … hopeful? Eager? Why exactly was he asking after Edith?

"I can't say for sure," she said at last. "It's up to her."

Sir Anthony's face fell a little. "Oh. I see." He stepped backwards towards the car. "Thank you. And good luck."

 _We'll need all the luck in the world if we're going to pull this off_ , Mary thought.

She and walked to the jet as Sir Anthony's car drove away. "So where are we headed now?" Sybil asked. "I'm assuming Rio isn't our destination anymore."

"No. Paris." Mary kept her eyes trained on the jet, and her face as expressionless as she could. Even so, a single sliver of emotion betrayed her as she said, "We're going to need to get our architect back."

Sybil couldn't help but smirk a little as she followed Mary up the jet stairs.

* * *

 _Who could the architect possibly be? Hmm ... ;)_


	5. A Reunion of Strangers

_So last time I dropped the hint that we would be meeting 'the architect' of the group ... and now we will! Although a lot of you may have already guessed who that is! But I'm sure you know this won't be a joyful, happy reunion ... instead, you get angst and awkwardness galore! Once again, thank you for reading, following, and reviewing!_

* * *

Chapter Four – A Reunion of Strangers

Matthew Crawley's choice of career hadn't always been architecture. His father had been a doctor, and his grandfather a solicitor, and for a long time he had considered those his two options by which he could make a living. He wasn't looking to do anything extraordinary or unusual, and with both of those careers he at least knew what to expect. They were typical jobs, ones that guaranteed a good income, and so for a while he believed that was what he was destined to do.

However, in his penultimate year of secondary school, one of his professors suggested looking into schools of architecture rather than law school. This came as a bit of a surprise to Matthew – he didn't see himself as particularly creative, and he didn't really have a hand for drawing – but this suggestion piqued an interest in an area he might not have otherwise considered. And once he started to explore this field of study, his interest suddenly increased to fascination. Law and medicine had never held his fascination quite like architecture did. It was the chance to create something – homes, buildings, monuments – that enticed him. Somehow he realized that _this_ was what he was meant to do.

Still, he didn't suppose he was going to do anything terribly extraordinary with architecture – he'd design homes, office buildings, sketch floor plans and layouts he'd seen a thousand times over. Which is why, when a woman he had never met before (but who oddly enough shared his last name) approached him with a rather vague offer, he hadn't initially thought very much of it. The strangest thing about it had been that she had come to him while he was still in school, studying at the École d'Architecture in Paris.

What she actually showed him, however, was beyond anything he could have imagined.

Within the world of the dream, he had the chance to build impossible structures – cathedrals, skyscrapers, entire cities, places that could never exist in the real world. Each dream was a labyrinth that only he knew how to solve, and once inside the dream he could manipulate his own designs into impossible shapes. Traditionally, architects didn't actually go into dreams – they simply designed them and taught them to the dreamers – but once Matthew experienced his first shared dream he wasn't going to give up the chance of seeing the end result of his creations. As surreal – and terrifying – as dreams could get, particularly in extractions, he never wanted to miss out on something that few others would ever experience.

But at some point everyone has to come back to reality. For Matthew it wasn't a choice, but he had to accept that those days of building castles in the air were gone. So it was back to the École d'Architecture, serving as a teaching assistant while he got used to designing the ordinary again.

Friday afternoon he lingered behind in the lecture hall long after the professor and students had filed out. He sat off to the side in one of the rows, a stack of papers in front of him. He figured he might as well get a head start on grading them so he wasn't loosing sleep over the weekend. It wasn't something he was eager to do, but having been a teaching assistant for the past two years, he knew it was simply a part of the deal.

At the back of the room he heard the door swing open slowly – most likely a student who had forgotten a bag or phone. He turned around, blinking as he tore his eyes away from the words on the paper that were beginning to blur together. "Can I help y—?"

It wasn't a student standing by the doors, looking over at where he sat. It was someone he recognized, someone who he hadn't expected to ever see again. And he wasn't sure if he was glad or not to see her.

"Hello," Mary said simply, with just a hint of her trademark frostiness.

Matthew's mouth hung upon a little, at a loss for words. He looked up at Mary for a moment, wondering if his eyes were deceiving him – was this a side-effect of grading papers he hadn't experienced before?

"Hello," he replied finally. His own tone sounded nearly as stiff as Mary's had.

Mary stepped down the empty rows at the top of the room, looking around the lecture hall. "Do you not have your own office?"

"I share one," Matthew shrugged. "But I prefer the space here. It's not quite so cramped."

Mary nodded. Matthew tried to search her face for the reason why she might be here, but she was perfectly expressionless. Just like the first time they had met. Nothing behind her exterior to suggest that she was, in fact, a very complex woman.

She stood at the end of the row he was sitting at. There was still a few feet of space between them. "How have you been?" she asked, sounding more like she was asking just to fill the silence.

"Alright," Matthew murmured. His situation was … dull, but it was better than other outcomes that could have been. "You?"

Mary sighed. "It's not … it hasn't been ideal."

"Where have you been?"

"Everywhere, it feels like. Except for England, obviously."

They fell into silence again. Matthew wasn't surprised at her answer. He himself hadn't been back home for two years either, and he hadn't tried to figure out a way to legally return. He knew he might inadvertently reveal too much about what he had done, what the entire team had committed, and that wasn't worth the risk.

"Have you seen your mother lately?" Mary asked.

"She last visited about two months ago," Matthew answered. "She's visited about … four times, I think, since I came back here."

"That's nice."

Mary started pacing, turning her back to Matthew. He knew better than to ask if she had seen her parents recently; he suspected that they still hadn't forgiven her for her massive blunder, even though it had been two years. She wouldn't want to say anything on _that_ matter, and Matthew didn't blame her. But he did want to ask her why she had come to find him after two years of separation. Small talk wasn't going to get them anywhere, and yet that seemed to be all that was happening between them right now.

"Mary, why—" he asked after another full moment of silence.

"Are you busy right now?" Mary cut in. She was looking at the papers in front of him. "Because I can go if—"

"No … well, I was just …" Matthew glanced down at the papers in front of him, the tiny print beginning to swim on the white paper. "I can do all this later," he stammered. He stood up and put his bag on the desk, hurriedly shoving the papers into it. "Would you like to … um … go somewhere else?"

"Go somewhere else?" she repeated.

Matthew frowned. "So we can talk? I assumed that's why you're here – unless you just popped in to say hello."

He knew he sounded a bit curt, and Mary didn't deserve it. But before he could mutter an apology, Mary replied, "Oh, right. I suppose that's alright."

She still looked uncertain, as if unsure of the reason why she was here at all, and she didn't look at Matthew as he stepped past her. She trailed behind Matthew as he walked up to the door, slinging his bag across his shoulders.

"There's a café two blocks away from here that I go often," he said. "Unless there's somewhere else …"

"No, that sounds fine," Mary replied shortly.

They walked in silence down the wide, airy corridor, passing by framed designs on the wall and a few students milling about on their way to the entrance. It was like walking with a stranger, even though they had worked together for a long time, both inside and outside dreams. Matthew didn't expect just two years apart would be enough to take them back to being little better than complete strangers. When he sometimes imagined her coming back to him – knocking on his door late at night, or seeing her on the other side of the street – he hoped there would be just a hint of a smile, some small emotion. But there was none of that now. He couldn't read in her face what she might be thinking.

Why had she come here, finding him where she evidently knew he'd be, if just to act like a completely stranger to him? Did their history together matter to her? Had she even missed him during the past two years?

Matthew had certainly missed her – she was all he could think about for the first few weeks after the team separated. He was worried about her, but he had no way of contacting her, no way to know where she was or if she was alright. All he could do eventually was let her slowly slip out of his mind. Now she was back, and he had no idea how to act.

In a few short minutes they were sitting at a table in front of the café Matthew had suggested. He frequented the place, going at least twice a week, and the waiter who served them knew him by name.

"The usual cappuccino, Monsieur Crawley?" the tall waiter asked in heavily–accented English. "Or perhaps something more special to share with the mademoiselle? We have a lovely pinot—"

"No – no, thank you," Matthew stammered. "A cappuccino will be fine."

The waiter jotted that down, looking slightly disappointed that he wouldn't be bringing out any wine for the 'couple.' "And for you, mademoiselle?"

"Just a cup of tea, thank you," Mary muttered. The way she looked down at her menu, eyebrows arched, told Matthew that she understood well what the waiter had implied. As if this reunion wasn't awkward enough, he thought.

The waiter hadn't yet realized that there was an uncomfortable cloud over the two he was seeing as a 'couple.' "Something to eat as well, perhaps? Éclair, profiterole? Anything?"

Mary didn't look at either the waiter or Matthew, but the impatient tapping of her fingers on the table made Matthew more nervous about this meeting. "I think we're alright with the beverages, thank you," he quietly told the waiter.

Glancing at the rather aloof lady, the waiter murmured a very faint, " _Bonne chance_ ," to Matthew before turning on his heel and walking back into the interior of the café.

Matthew sighed, feeling rather embarassed. "I'm sorry about that … I usually come alone and—"

"It's fine," Mary dismissed, cutting him off. Matthew knew it was a cliché, but Mary was definitely one of those women that claimed things were fine when the opposite was the case. He could sense that she was ticked off from the waiter's implication that she and Matthew were … well, that there was something going on between them.

She was turning his gaze to anything but him, as if he wasn't sitting right across the little café table from her. She didn't seem ready to engage in any real conversation with him at the moment. Why had she agreed to come with him to the café if she was only going to act as though he wasn't there? Surely she hadn't come to Paris to see him again just to force him to watch her, waiting for her to say something, keeping him in agonizing suspense. As if two years of separation hadn't been agony enough. Here she was, within arm's reach, and she was still so far away from Matthew.

His heart sank and his stomach twisted into a knot. He figured things might be awkward when he and Mary reunited, but this … to Matthew, it wasn't simply just awkward: it was painful.

The silence continued for a few minutes until the same waiter brought them their beverages. This time he didn't say anything, but Matthew did catch the sympathetic glance in his direction. Mary idly stirred her cup of tea and took a few tentative sips before finally glancing up at Matthew, and his heart inexplicably went into a flutter.

"So," Mary started, "are you a professor now?"

Matthew shook his head. "No, I'm just a teaching assistant. I grade papers, see students when they need help, that sort of thing. It's a bit dull, but it pays."

Mary nodded. "And do you still … design?"

With a shrug, Matthew answered, "Sort of. I'll do examples for the classes now and then, but I haven't designed any real buildings or anything since … well, not since I was hired."

Being a full-time teaching assistant, no one ever came to him to ask him to design something. He practiced whenever he could – drawing mazes on the back of napkins or sketching a layout in the free space of a notebook, but none of his designs ever came to life, either in the real world or a dream.

He didn't know if he should ask what Mary had been doing for the past two years, but he had a guess to that even without her saying so. If she hadn't contacted him before now, he could only suppose that she had still been working in extraction.

And now he was getting the feeling that she was about to drag him back into it too.

The crescendo of a wailing siren cut through the tranquil atmosphere of the Parisien street, and Matthew instinctively raised his head, catching sight of the police car rushing past the café. He would have thought nothing of it – the police car was out of sight in a matter of seconds, its destination further down the road – but he glimpsed Mary, who had also looked towards the source of the siren, and her eyes were wide with … alarm? She stared hard at the direction the police car had driven, as if making sure it wasn't going to make a u-turn and come racing back towards them.

"Are you alright?" Matthew asked.

Mary whipped her head back around. "What? No, I'm fine – the siren just startled me, that's all. It's nothing."

Of course it wasn't nothing, Matthew knew: people didn't react with alarm to a passing police siren – unless they were in fear of being arrested.

All of a sudden he wondered if Mary was in danger of being arrested even though she wasn't in England. Were the French police looking for her?

"Hang on – is it safe for you to be here?" he asked anxiously.

"Yes – yes, it's fine," Mary assured him, failing to conceal a nervous gulp. "It just startled me – it came out of nowhere."

Matthew wasn't entirely convinced, however. He had never been concerned about being arrested while he was living in French borders before, but Mary's jumpiness at hearing the siren made him wonder if he should be worried about that now. Could her coming to Paris result in the police coming after _him_ too? The last thing he wanted was him going back to his flat to find the police or even RAID waiting for him.

"The police aren't coming after you, are they?" he asked Mary.

She shook her head. "If they were, they would have already gotten me," she said. Matthew could tell if that was an attempt to hide her nervousness with some poor humor. "Extradition between France and the U.K. is a political nightmare. Besides, _you've_ been here for two years and haven't been sent back, right?"

"Yes, but …" Matthew sighed. "I'm not …"

Mary arched a brow. "Not what?"

 _Not the leader of the team_ , Matthew was thinking. _Not the head of the operation. I'm expendable_. _Mary isn't_.

"I'm not important," he answered, ducking his head as he took a sip of his coffee. He knew he had to have crossed a fine line, and he prepared himself for any harsh words Mary was ready to berate him with.

But her response surprised him. "I wouldn't have come if I thought it would put you in danger," she replied.

Matthew was struck silent by that. He went very still, his eyes still locked onto his coffee cup. How very like Mary to say something like that with such indifference. But he knew she meant it.

When he raised his eyes to her she was looking at the street, as if she suddenly decided to ignore him again – or if she was still looking out for the police car. They were getting nowhere again. Would she even raise an objection if he stood up and walked away? He wouldn't do that, of course, but neither did he want to just sit here, hardly speaking when he knew there was so much both of them wanted to say to each other.

"Why did you come here?" he asked.

"Hmm?" Mary's head jolted away from the street, and she looked at him like she hadn't quite understood the question.

"Why are you here, Mary?" Matthew repeated. "Why did you bother finding me if you aren't even going to tell me why?"

Mary's brow arched in that signature way, the way that was meant to make the other person feel like they had crossed a line. She shifted around in her seat and took another sip of tea, and her obvious attempt to stall irked Matthew even more. What could she be so hesitant to tell him?

"Mary, please just tell me what it is," he said. "I won't get angry at you, if that's what you're afraid of."

"You're not going to like it anyway," she muttered under her breath.

Matthew didn't want to let himself get angry at her, but his patience was wearing thin as Mary continually dodged him. "How can you know that when you haven't even given me a clue?"

"Because _I know_ there is _absolutely no way_ you'd agree to what I'm asking of you," Mary practically groaned. "Not after what happened the last time."

She seemed to wince as soon as she spoke, and her eyes were pleading for him not to react negatively. But frankly, Matthew wasn't sure how he should react. His breath caught in his throat, taken quite by surprise even though he had known that this might be her reason for finding him again.

"Oh …" he breathed. He ventured a guess at what Mary was hesitant to ask him. "Do you … you want me back on the team?"

She was looking at him with a rather pained look in her eyes. "No … I _need_ you back on the team."

Now it was Matthew's turn to act the confused party, although this time he really was perplexed. "What do you mean? What's going on?"

"A job," Mary said. "It's a difficult one, and it's probably impossible – but if we can pull it off, then we can go back home."

For a second, Matthew wasn't sure if he had heard her right. "We can go home? Are you … are you really saying that … ?"

Mary nodded. "We really can go home – _if_ we finish the job, which again I'm pretty sure is impossible," she added despondently. "But I feel that it's the only change we'll ever get for a long time."

"I don't understand – how did you – who gave you this job?"

Mary began to explain, in a hurried and breathless manner, what had happened just hours before in Berlin, explaining as best as she could the incredibly complex task Sir Anthony Strallan had presented them with. Much of what she said went right over Matthew's head, but he understood just enough to know that this was a job that was unlike anything else he (or probably anyone) had ever done.

He was still stunned beyond belief about her saying that this was the chance to go home. It seemed too good to be true that completing this job could somehow absolve them of the charges that would result in them being arrested and convicted if they set foot within Great Britain's borders. How could some CEO of an agricultural company possibly rescind those charges? And a more pressing matter: how could they possibly succeed in the job that, judging by Mary's explanation, didn't even resemble a traditional extraction? She was certainly justified in assuming it was impossible – it probably was.

But if she had come back to Paris to find him, with this job being the reason she had returned at all, then she must have had some small hope that it could be done.

And he wanted to go home so badly as well. It wasn't enough when his mother visited once in a while, although it was nice; but he wanted to _feel_ like he was where he belonged again – walk down the familiar streets and live in a house that felt like a proper home. Two years in Paris and he still felt like a foreigner: the city was a beautiful place, and he didn't dislike it at all, but he was never able perceive it as home, as where he was actually supposed to live his life. He still felt like he was waiting for the call to go home, waiting to receive a plane or train ticket arriving in the mail.

Perhaps, he now thought, it was because he had never fully let go of the hope that he could return to England without being immediately thrown into a jail cell. Even though that hope had eroded away with time, maybe it hadn't disappeared completely.

"Listen, Matthew," Mary sighed, "I know I'm probably expecting too much by asking this of you." She lowered her eyes as if she was ashamed. "I'm sorry … but I – we _need_ you back. This job is … God, I don't even fully believe it can be done, but if there's some small chance that it _could_ be done … I don't have time to find another architect and I can't train them for this job alone. You're probably the only one who could manage it."

There were cracks in her aloofness – Matthew could see them almost as if they were visible lines in her skin. She had come to him out of desperation to get him to come back to the team, but simply as the architect. It was like she didn't want to face the rest of him – she wasn't here to deal with the rest of Matthew, the part that wasn't merely a colleague.

"Do you think I won't come back to the team?"

"Why would you? You didn't stay. And to be honest, I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to, after …" She drifted off, but again Matthew knew what she was going to say. _After what happened_.

"I only left because I thought the team was splitting for good," he insisted. "I thought that was the end of the extraction business—"

"That's not the only reason though, is it?"

Matthew paused, wondering if he should bring up what Mary was surely thinking about – what he was thinking about right now as well. He ran his fingers through his hair, digging his fingertips into his scalp as he tried to force his mind away from the memories that he hadn't dared to remember for a long time. He could barely hide his own regret about that … incident.

The other reason that Mary was referring to wasn't the same reason that that they were not allowed to go back to England. This other reason didn't involve the rest of the team: it was solely between the two of them, and that made it harder to deal with, to even think about.

"You still came here, though," Matthew said. "Even though you're thinking I won't come back to the team. You still came here to ask me anyway."

"I thought I might at least … check," Mary muttered.

A sound that was a cross between a chuckle and a scoff came out of his throat. "You thought you would check?" Matthew repeated.

Mary gave him a very hard glare. "Like I said, you don't have any reason to return, so—"

"Yes, I do, actually."

More chinks in her visage. There was genuine confusion in her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"I really do miss working for the team," Matthew admitted. "Maybe this is hard for you to believe, and you think that after everything that happened I shouldn't think it was worth it. But I really did _like_ it – I liked feeling like I was doing something real, that what I was creating wasn't just a concept that no one would see. It wasn't just a job for me, it was … it was exciting. And," he added a bit more cautiously, "I miss the rest of the team. I miss Tom and Sybil a lot."

Mary nodded. Matthew and Tom had gotten along well, and Sybil simply got along with everybody. "Well, Sybil's here in Paris too, so I'm sure you'll want to say hello to her. She'll be glad to see you."

"And I've missed you too," Matthew added.

He said it so sincerely that Mary's eye widened involuntarily; she hadn't been anticipating that. "Did you?"

Matthew nodded, not sure if he should get his hopes up by expecting her to say something similar. "I really did."

Mary seemed at a loss for words at this. Her mouth hung open for a few seconds, completely unmoving as if Matthew's revelation had given her a shock. Was it really that surprising for her to believe that Matthew had missed her?

Which begged the question – had she missed him at all? It was a thought that discouraged him enough to make him hesitate in agreeing to come back to the team. That thought that the few private moments they shared, when it was just the two of them, alone in a dream or in the workshop after dark, might not mean so much to her as it did to him.

But he couldn't bear to disappoint Mary; he could tell she did indeed need him, and he could deal with her treating him like a stranger again. And if things went well, perhaps this job would mean they could go back home. Matthew would not be the one to deny them that slight chance.

"To answer your question, yes, I will come back to the team," he said. "Just tell me what I need to do and I'll do it."

Despite his affirmation, Mary didn't seem convinced that he meant it. "Are you absolutely sure you want to do this? Your job is going to be much more difficult than it was in the past."

"Then I'll just have to work harder," Matthew replied simply.

"You won't abandon us if it gets too difficult?"

Matthew frowned and his face paled, staggered that Mary could think such a thing. "Do you really think I would do that?"

Mary swallowed, perhaps realizing her mistake. "I don't know. I had to be sure."

So she didn't fully trust him anymore. Two years, and she thought that in the span of that time he could change. "You know I wouldn't ever do that," Matthew said.

"Like I said, I have to be sure. I can't risk anything with this job."

She had returned to sounding so cold, so professional. If Matthew thought that getting under that cool exterior was difficult before, now he was thinking it was damn near impossible.

"Mary, I'm agreeing to come back to the team since you've asked me, and now you're acting like I can't be trusted—"

"Well, forgive me for not wanting anything to jeopardize this job!" she shot back, a bit too loudly. A few people sitting at café tables nearby glanced at them.

"What is this all about?" Matthew demanded. "Is this about what happened – I mean, between _us_?"

Mary's eyes widened. "It's not about _that at all_! I told you, I can't take any risks!"

Matthew couldn't hold back an indignant snort. "So I'm a risk now?"

"It's not something you'd understand."

"Then help me to understand."

"Good God, Matthew, just – just let it go!"

They were both talking too loudly to appear like they were still having a civil conversation. Now Matthew was wishing that he hadn't declined the waiter's offer for that wine. Mary sat still, absolutely fuming, her ivory complexion tinged with scarlet. She took a moment to calm herself down, rubbing her forehead to hide her angry tears.

"Mary, I really think we should at least talk about what—"

"There's nothing to say about it, Matthew," Mary retorted, her voice cracking. "I've put it all behind me. And I hope to God you have too."

She was lying; it still haunted her, just as much as it haunted Matthew. And since she was unwilling to confront the subject again, Matthew supposed neither of them would get closure soon, if ever. Which was going to make things awkward since Matthew would be working alongside Mary again, and working closely with her. And he would eventually be going back into the dream with her.

"Then you'll just have to trust me again," Matthew said. "I'll come back to the team for this job – if you'll have me back, that is."

To his relief, Mary nodded. "Alright then."

That was all the confirmation Matthew needed. "So am I officially on the team again?"

"Yes, you are," Mary said. Offhandedly, and without any emotion, she added, "Welcome back."

Matthew noticed how she started blinking more rapidly than normal, but he didn't say anything. "Do we need to shake on it?" he asked half-heartedly.

"I don't think there's any need to." She stood up out of her chair, Matthew doing the same thing when he thought she was going to leave. She looked at him quizzically. "I'm not going anywhere, I just need to use the loo."

Matthew sat back down, watching her push past the closely-packed café chairs and tables. He rested his arms on the table, rubbing his face and trying to decide if that had gone horribly bad or as well as it could have.

As glad as he should have felt to be a part of the team again, he knew it wouldn't be the same as when he was working with them before. It would be just him with Mary and Sybil, as Tom had left around the same time he did, and recently Edith had defected too. He hoped, at least, that Sybil would be a bit more welcoming than Mary, but even so time and misfortune had changed too much. He didn't feel like he was returning to the team as he remembered it, but to a new one that was only a skeleton of the old one.

And he and Mary had the past looming over them like a storm cloud. He didn't know how she felt about what had happened between them, and he never got the chance to ask her before he left the team . Even then, she distanced herself from him, treating him so coldly that he realized any trust she had in him was never going to be rebuilt. If they were going to be working closely together – and he knew they would from experience – he had to prepare himself to be met with even more detachment.

When that time came, would the past finally catch up to them?

He felt a tap on his shoulder and looked up to see the waiter standing next to him. "Can I get you another cappuccino, Monsieur Crawley? Or perhaps something stronger?"

"Er – no thank you – just the check, I think," Matthew stammered.

The waiter didn't immediately go back inside. "How did things go with the mademoiselle?"

Matthew groaned, which should have been enough to give the waiter the hint. "The check, _please_."

With a smile that could be loosely described as sympathetic, the waiter retreated back into the café, returning a minute later with the check. Matthew had just handed the waiter back the check with a couple of folded banknotes in it when Mary returned.

She opened her mouth at almost the exact same time that Matthew had begun to say something, even though he wasn sure what he wanted to say. He stopped himself, but Mary still didn't say anything.

"Is there anything you—?" Matthew decided to ask.

"I need to go now, actually." She sounded only a little apologetic, but she kept her eyes away from Matthew. "I'm meeting Sybil – we set up a place to work in. An old warehouse or something. It's got equipment, it …" She paused, biting her lip. Matthew worried that she'd walk off without so much as a goodbye, leaving him standing by himself at the café.

"Well … I suppose I'll let you go then," he said. "Should I … expect to see you again soon?"

"Yes, I think so …" she muttered.

She had turned away from him, about to walk away from Matthew as he predicted, when she spun back around. "Actually, you should come with me to see the workshop. It's not very far, we just have to take the Métro a couple stops."

Matthew was rather glad that she had offered that, even though she still seemed unlikely to open up any more. He nodded, standing up from the café chair. "Sure, that sounds – good. I can … I can go with you."

Mary immediately started walking away from the café and down the street towards the Métro station, Matthew following close behind her. All he could think about was how he was going to survive the next few weeks working alongside Mary, forcing himself not to reveal the one big reason why he wanted to return to the team.

 _She_ was that reason. Even if none of the other reasons mattered – his need to be useful, to do something interesting with his life – he would still go back on account of Mary.

Even if, after this job was done, she might not want anything to do with him ever again.


	6. Overwrought Company

_I know that it's been so long since an update for this fic, and I know this isn't a long enough chapter to compensate for the wait, but trust me that this fic is still going and will still be updated. Please let me know what you think – any and all reviews are appreciated. And I do apologize for even more copious amounts of angst in this not-so-thrilling chapter, but I do hope you enjoy it nevertheless!_

* * *

Chapter Five – Overwrought Company

While Mary was off doing her 'errand,' Sybil took some time to do a little research on their target. As the point woman of the team, it was her job to research as much as she could about their target, and while 'research' often included some hacking, a Google search was where she usually started. And there was no shortage of information on the Internet about Rose MacClare, and even more about the Flintshire conglomerate.

It was important for extractors to know all they could about the mark: who they were as a person, how they acted when seen by the public and by people they knew, their line of work. A broad picture could be gained just by spending a few hours on the Internet, but when a more detailed picture was needed – and usually it was – then emails, private meetings, interactions with work colleagues all needed to be infiltrated. Rumor and media speculation weren't nearly enough to work with. Close observation of a person was needed to craft the best possible scenario for extraction and for forgeries when it was needed.

The official website for the Flintshire conglomerate presented itself as a company dedicated to 'working towards a better future' – a slogan which Sybil rolled her eyes at. It claimed its mission was to make energy accessible to all corners of the globe, particularly in third-world countries, as well as helping the agricultural economy on the Indian subcontinent. There was a photo gallery showing men in button-up shirts with rolled-up sleeves, squinting in the sunlight and surrounded by people from India or whatever country they were in. Sybil wasn't at all averse to helping people in need or aiding economies in third-world countries, but the way Flintshire presented itself as some great do-good company that was somehow going to eradicate poverty seemed like a false facade. If what Strallan claimed was at all correct – that their ambition was more than charity

Also on the website were measures of the company's vast wealth – the actual numbers stunned Sybil – and there was a list of companies Flintshire had acquired in the past, including the Duneagle company. That merger had been the subject of much controversy: despite being a small company, Duneagle had always been staunchly independent, and so many newspapers suspected foul play when Flintshire announced it was acquiring Duneagle suddenly. An investigation hadn't revealed much, but Sybil had to admit the whole thing smelled fishy.

Sybil then searched for information specifically about Rose MacClare. The more sympathetic news articles expressed doubt at her ability to manage such a large company, and the most scathing reviews condemned her as a spoiled bimbo who wasn't at all fit to carry on her family's legacy. Her days at university seemed to involve more dancing and dates than studying for her economics and business degree. In interviews about her role as heir to the company, Miss MacClare was often flippant about the company and her own family. To say she had even a shred of interest in running the company was a gross overstatement.

However, statements from the current head of Flintshire, Hugh MacClare, only tried to hide the fact that next head of the conglomerate was ill-prepared to take the reins. He kept asserting such things as, "Rose MacClare is dedicated to upholding the mission of Flintshire," and "She has plenty of potential, and I am certain you will see it when she takes over." Of course, anybody could see those statements were only for the sake of keeping up the image of Flintshire as a well-oiled machine, and it was clear that there was a real fear that it was soon to be run by an unprepared and extremely disinterested woman.

Even though she had broad picture of the company and of Rose MacClare, it wasn't enough information to form a plan of action with just yet. Sybil knew someone would have to get close to the company, to Rose MacClare and other important figures. That would also likely be her job; she had applied as an intern at Merton Banking in order to observe Richard Grey and the workings of the company – which of course had also resulted in her getting too close for comfort to Larry Grey. That was typically the job of the forger, as someone who took on the likeness of a person close to the mark, but since they had no forger anymore, it was now Sybil's job. As if she didn't have so much else to work with.

She was inside the warehouse Mary had found in the middle of Paris for them to use as their workshop. It appeared to be some sort of old stationary or print shop, a couple of the bigger machines still there and sitting in dust, but there were deck chairs and tables sitting on the wilted rooftop garden, which Sybil had pulled down the stairs to put inside. There was plenty of open space on the first floor, so she set the deck chairs and tables there, plugged in the modem, and started the research on her laptop. Mary, meanwhile, was off somewhere doing something which she had refused to disclose to Sybil, but Sybil had a good idea of where she was going.

Whether or not she would be successful remained to be seen.

Before she had left on her 'mystery' errand, Mary told Sybil to be careful of anyone who might be looking for them – the police, Foyle or Grey's henchmen, RAID – anyone who might try to break into the workshop. Even though the probability of them being hunted in Paris should have been small, Mary was apparently still worried that Tony Foyle and Larry Grey would still be on their tail. She had handed Sybil a handgun, saying to her "just in case," and left the warehouse before Sybil could inquire where in the world she had gotten a handgun. Or tell Mary that a single handgun wouldn't be much help to her if RAID decided to come rappelling through the windows with machine guns.

But Sybil still kept the handgun within arm's reach while she worked. So when she heard the doors behind her open, she whipped her head around, hand hovering over the gun, calling out, "Who's there?" even as she saw who was coming through the door.

"Relax Sybil, it's just me," Mary said as she strode in, obviously seeing what Sybil's hand was hovering over.

Sybil let her hand drop into her lap, standing up from her chair. "You could be an officer in disguise," she said sardonically.

She picked up the notepad on which she had been writing the information she had found online, intending to hand it right to Mary. But when she saw who had followed Mary inside she blinked in shock, dropped the notepad, and squealed aloud, "Matthew!"

Matthew, who had been glancing around the workshop in curiosity, barely had time to react as Sybil ran to him and practically flung herself at him. He caught her as he stumbled backwards, just barely regaining his balance in time, but he didn't seem to mind that Sybil had nearly knocked him over. He was smiling, obviously happy to see her – and Mary noticed.

He hadn't smiled at all before, she realized, not with her. He clearly hadn't been angry or disappointed to see her, but there had barely been even a hint of a smile the entire time they had been sitting together at the café. Mary hadn't expected him to be embracing her like he was doing with Sybil now, and she knew beforehand that Matthew would be glad to see Sybil – Matthew had almost been like the brother she never had.

But it still hurt to see him smiling with Sybil as though nothing had changed. Apparently he was only a stranger to Mary.

She turned her back to Matthew and Sybil and picked up the notepad Sybil had dropped on the floor. "Are these all the notes you made?" she asked, flipping between pages. There was plenty of comprehensive information on Rose MacClare and Flintshire, but it was only stuff that one might find on a wiki page, very little that could help them form a plan of action.

Sybil walked back over to Mary, wrenching the notepad back. "All I could do without hacking into somebody's email."

"I know, I know," Mary sighed. "But did you find anything specifically on Rose – what she's done for the company, what her relations are—"

"Flintshire really likes keeping a lid on anything she does, if she has done anything," Sybil explained. "It's like what Strallan said, she's really not interested in being involved. She's not on the board, she's never attended any expos or big meetings, and she's only really talked about when she gets into trouble."

Mary lifted an eyebrow. "What sort of trouble?"

"Not drugs or anything _really_ bad, at least as far as I can tell. She goes to clubs a lot, dances and drinks and dates guys—"

"So everything that a normal person does," Mary remarked.

"And everything that the heir to the world's fastest growing conglomerate isn't supposed to do," Sybil added. "I think it's a little harsh, the way that the media treat her. I think she just wants to have a bit of fun."

Mary nodded, scanning over Sybil's notes again. "Did you find anything specific on how she sees the company? I know Strallan said she doesn't have much interest."

"I don't think she has any, at all," Sybil said. "In a couple of interviews she says she just doesn't really care, she doesn't want to think about the company at all, even though she might inherit it soon. And if she keeps on not caring about the company when she takes control, people are afraid it's going to stall the company's growth."

"Aren't there other people that can call the shots within the company?" Mary asked.

"Sure, but the MacClare family is the face of Flintshire, they're the ones at the top. If Rose doesn't act like a good CEO, the entire company is going to look bad to the public, and they might lose a lot of what they've gained over the past few years. At least, that's what the papers say will happen."

"Right," Mary said absently, still looking at the notepad. "So the worry for Flintshire is that Rose is going to give the company bad PR, unless Rose actually starts taking an interest in the running of things. But our job is to give her incentive to dissolve the conglomerate, which is also going to be really bad news for them."

Sybil smirked. "So either way, they're screwed."

"You seem oddly pleased about it," Matthew said, finally speaking up. He was standing off to the side, as though unsure of what he should be doing, or if he should even be there.

With a shrug, Sybil said, "They aren't exactly the most honest company, and like what Strallan said, them growing in power isn't going to do much good. At the rate they're growing, a lot of newspapers think they'll be controlling government policy within the next three years."

"Sybil, please don't turn into an anti-conglomerate activist now," Mary sighed, turning back to the computer and opening up a new window.

"I'm an anti-corruption activist, actually," Sybil rebuked in a half-sardonic tone.

" _Is_ Flintshire corrupt?" Matthew asked.

"I wouldn't be surprised if they were accused of it," Sybil said. "But as far as I know, they're just extremely unregulated – which sometimes can be the same thing as corrupt."

"Sybil, we are not going to get involved in whether or not Flintshire is corrupt. They could be a bloody charity and we'd still have to do the job," Mary dismissed.

Sybil frowned, adding, "But it would feel a lot worse if we were taking down a charity, though. You have to agree."

Except for a barely audible groan, Mary didn't answer. Sybil peered at what was on the computer monitor that Mary was so focused on. "Is this really the time to be checking your email?"

"I'm _not_ checking my email, I'm accessing the encrypted document Anthony Strallan sent us with all his contact information," Mary explained. The webpage she was at displayed her email inbox, but when she clicked on a file the decryption program on the computer immediately started running. "I need Strallan's phone number or his email address, whichever one he'll answer to sooner."

"What for?"

"I need a private plane to Boston," Mary muttered, eyes still locked onto the screen as the decryption program continued to run.

Sybil looked to Matthew, but obviously he was just as perplexed as she. Mary hadn't mentioned any plans to go travelling again; they had just gotten into Paris after all. Typical of Mary to not tell people important things.

"Boston? Why are you going to … ?" Sybil began asking, but it quickly dawned on her and she gasped. "You're not—!"

"As a matter of fact, I am," Mary interrupted. "But before you ask, no, you are _not_ coming with me."

Sybil's face fell in an instant, turning cross a second later. "Mary, that's not fair—"

" _You_ need to stay here and bring Matthew up to speed, get him settled in again," Mary cut in again. " _I_ need to go to Boston."

"Sorry, but what's in Boston?" Matthew asked quietly.

Mary raised her eyebrows quickly, eyes darting between Sybil and Matthew. Sybil was staring hard at her, arms crossed and fingers drumming her sleeve like a teacher expecting a student to admit to some wrongdoing. Matthew was also looking at her, though not so intently.

"Tom Branson's in Boston," Mary explained, "and for this job we're going to need a forger who know's what he's doing."

Now Matthew's eyebrows shot up with surprise. "Tom? He's coming back too?"

"If he agrees to it, yes," Mary shrugged. "But I'm not all that certain he will."

Matthew nodded glumly, remembering the last time any of them had seen Tom Branson. It had not been a happy parting of ways, especially for Sybil. She had been extremely upset when Tom practically fled as soon as the team heard of their imminent arrests. All he had told her was that he'd be going to Boston – he had family there – but he hadn't given them an address, or even a phone number or email address. Initially that had been for security purposes, in case someone tried to trace him and arrest him in Boston, but even when things settled down no one had heard a word from him, not even Sybil.

"All I know is that he should be in Boston," Mary went on after a pause. "Unless he's gone somewhere else, it shouldn't be too hard to trace him."

"What if he has gone somewhere else?" Matthew asked.

"Then we have no choice but to find someone else to train. But we don't have that kind of time, and then there's the issue of liability …"

"So either we convince Tom to come back or the whole job is bust," Sybil presumed. "But if Mary goes, that will probably happen."

Mary's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean by _that_?"

"Mary, you do realize that you've probably got a price on your head," said Sybil. "We were lucky not to be caught in Berlin, and if Strallan hadn't let us fly here in his own plane we might have very well been arrested at the airport otherwise." She seemed exasperated that Mary needed that explained. "Don't you think that if you try to fly to Boston you might be arrested? Police cars on the tarmac? Extradition agents waiting at customs?"

"Yes, I realize that, that's why I was going to contact Strallan and see if he can't get me a private plane. I'm not an idiot."

Sybil continued nevertheless. "And even if somehow you aren't arrested at the gate, Foyle or Grey might pick something up and try to capture you in Boston? You _and_ Tom?"

"They won't arrest Tom, they don't know who he is," Mary attempted to assure Sybil. "Look, it's a risk I need to take for the sake of the job."

"Isn't that too big of a risk?" Matthew piped up. "Even if you do get a private plane, do you think that this Furle or whomever will try to track you?"

"Foyle, and no, I don't know if I'm going to be tracked or they've issued my arrest warrant in Boston," Mary explained. "But again, it's a risk that I'm just going to have to take."

"And if you do get arrested, then where will we be?" Sybil pointed out with a warning in her tone. "We won't have you, our extractor, and then we might not get our forger. If anyone goes, it should be me or even Matthew."

Mary shook her head. "Matthew needs to stay here and get used to the dream-sharing process again."

"Alright, then I'll go to Boston," Sybil said firmly.

"I think Sybil's right, she should go," Matthew put in. "Sounds to me like, that way, it involves the least amount of risk."

Sybil shot Mary a look as if to tell her, _You know he's right_. "Exactly."

And Mary knew that Matthew was right. She had known that it would be safer to let Sybil go in her place even when she realized that they would need to find Branson in Boston. Sybil might still be at risk for arrest, but she could slip past the authorities better than Mary could. It was Mary's own head that Foyle and Grey truly wanted. And Sybil was certainly the better candidate for convincing Branson to return to the team; they had had a good relationship within the team.

Perhaps a little _too_ good.

But if Sybil went to Boston, Mary would be left alone with Matthew. Avoiding Matthew within the workshop would be impossible: it would be her duty to reintegrate him into dream-sharing, get him started on designing the levels for the dream, guide him through every little detail about the job … she be within sight of him for nearly every hour of the day.

And if she couldn't physically avoid him, avoiding the past would prove difficult. Mary wasn't ready to face the past, even though she knew she needed absolution. What if Matthew tried to bring it up at some point? Even if he didn't, the past would still be hanging over them, waiting to be mentioned out of the blue … and Mary wasn't ready for that moment.

Then again, she didn't have much of a choice: Matthew was right, it would be far safer to have Sybil to travel in her place. She knew they needed an expert forger and thief, and Tom was the best one they were going to get on short notice.

She exhaled tiredly as she said to Sybil, knowing exactly how her sister would react, "So I guess you're fine with going to Boston?"

Sybil's sudden, sharp gasp was one of girlish excitement. "Of course I am!" she exclaimed. "How soon can I get a flight? Do you think I'll need a fake passport?"

Mary began rubbing her eyes as she said, "God, Sybil, I don't know. The contact info is right there, you can email Strallan yourself. Sort out the details between the two of you."

"As soon as that ancient program finishes decrypting that file I will," Sybil said. She let out another little squeak of excitement, at which Mary rolled her eyes.

"Honestly, Sybil," she muttered. "You're not much better than a teenager."

"Well, forgive me for being happy about seeing a friend again," Sybil shot back.

 _A friend,_ Mary thought. That couldn't be what Sybil really saw Tom as.

She looked away, catching sight of Matthew chuckling softly. "What's so funny?" she inquired in too snappish a tone.

The amusement drained from Matthew's face in an instant. "Nothing, I … nothing," he murmured.

Mary immediately regretted being so snappish; Matthew didn't deserve her hostility. He probably just found it amusing that Sybil was practically jumping with joy. Mary, however, didn't find it half as droll as he did. Sybil's excitement concerned her; this was a trip that was strictly for business … and she was afraid that Sybil wouldn't treat it as such.

She wasn't oblivious to her surroundings, even when wrapped up in work. She had sometimes caught a split-second look at Tom and Sybil, standing somewhere together, either in reality or the dream world … and Mary would catch Tom steal a glance at Sybil as she worked, and Sybil would flash a quick smile at Tom whenever their eyes met. She recognized Tom even when he was disguised, and once in a while Mary woul see them touch … Tom's fingers lightly brushing Sybil's arm, Sybil squeezing Tom's hand as if to make sure he was still there.

There were plenty of other signs too, both conspicuous and subtle ones, and while those signs pointed to the obvious, Mary didn't want to inquire into her suspicions further. Not because she want to give Tom and Sybil privacy, but because she wanted to firmly ignore what she had been seeing. She reckoned the other people on the team noticed it as well, but they never outright asked Sybil or Tom if … something was going on. It was a secret everyone knew about, never spoke of.

Mary didn't approve of a romance between two people on the team, and she knew if she caught Tom and Sybil snogging anywhere she'd put a stop to it, but that occasion had never come. She realized that Sybil had been heartbroken when Tom had left with hardly a trace, but time appeared to have eased the pain, and Sybil hardly spoke of Tom thereafter. Only now, with Tom likely to return to the team, was Mary concerned there would be a rekindling of romance.

"I imagine you and Branson will be happy to see each other," said Matthew to Sybil.

"Of course," Sybil answered, turning her head to him. "Well, I hope he'll be happy to see me. It's been a while since … since I've even heard him."

Mary could feel Sybil shooting a rigid glare at her back, but she didn't say anything back. Naturally Sybil accused Mary of sending Tom away, but to Mary, Tom had walked away of his own accord, for his own security. It was his choice to leave … somewhat. Mary _had_ advised him, quite strongly, that he ought to leave as soon as possible when trouble started brewing. For that, Mary suspected Sybil had never totally forgiven her.

"Haven't you ever phoned him, or tried to find him at all?" Matthew asked.

"I did try, a long time ago," Sybil admitted.

"And he never called or emailed you?"

"Obviously not," Sybil muttered.

The computer pinged; the decryption program had completed. Sybil immediately opened the file. "Okay, I'm going to go and try him on his mobile first, that'll be quicker than an email. I'm going out to get some food too, I'm starving."

She went to the door, disposable mobile in hand. As soon as the door slammed shut behind her, Matthew started pacing the floor again.

"Sounds like things are going well already," he said dryly.

Mary arched an eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, you …" Matthew faltered for a moment, his brow furrowing. He was always careful about trying to choose the right words. "You and Sybil usually seemed to get along alright. Better than you and Edith did, at least. I just noticed that things seemed a little … tense?"

"Do they?" Mary was quick to reply. But this time she couldn't fake a smile and pretend that things were in fact alright or that she never noticed anything. It was plain to Matthew, and there was no way she could convince him otherwise.

"It's a bit hard to ignore. And I always saw Sybil as the mediator of the team. Always tried to keep everyone from fighting."

He was right about Sybil; the baby of the family, yet she was forever the one who tried to keep Mary and Edith from clawing each others eyes out, even as children. But even Sybil had her limits, and when she got snappish it was a little frightening. If she ended up starting a real quarrel with someone – which might happen soon with Mary – it could be disastrous, and Mary couldn't afford to have Sybil storm out like Edith had done in Berlin.

"It just gets claustrophobic sometimes," Mary sighed. "Since Edith's not here she's the only person I can argue with."

"Well if you're going to argue with someone, you might as well argue with me." Matthew spoke in an almost cheeky tone, and Mary could only blink in response. "Better than fighting with your family," he added.

"Like you know about fighting with family," Mary retorted. "You don't have any siblings, and I wouldn't fight with your mother unless I wanted to have my throat torn out."

Matthew chuckled, even though Mary hadn't been attempting to sound funny. "You're right about that, but … when I was working with team before, I always thought of Edith and Sybil like sisters. And Tom was a bit like a brother."

"Did you?" Mary murmured. She stifled the urge to ask, "And what about me?" She knew well how he thought of her – or used to.

Matthew nodded. "But I doubt it will feel exactly the same as it did before," he said, running a hand through his hair. "A lot's changed."

"Of course it has. What, did you think nothing has changed in two years? Like it would be going back in time?" Mary snapped suddenly. How could he be talking about the past with her like this, as if she had forgotten the mess the both of them had gotten into? Surely he wouldn't forget it – it was as much his fault as it was hers. "Matthew, this isn't going to be like before. You're here to do your job so we can at least go back to England, and that'll be it."

Matthew stared at her, with an expression of both disheartenment and resentment. He looked quite ready to jump down her throat or storm out of the warehouse. But he didn't do either of those things, and he simply turned away and started walking towards the door. Mary felt a pang in her heart, but her irritability outweighed any regret she had about snapping at him.

"Where are you going?" she demanded.

"I'm going home," he said, sounding like a defeated soldier. "I'll be back tomorrow, as early as I can. Unless you have something for me to do—?"

"There's nothing. So just … just go home."

"Right then." Matthew shuffled out without another word, closing the door and leaving Mary alone in the warehouse. The sound of the door closing left an echo ringing through the room, and when it faded there was absolute silence.

Anger was coursing through Mary like a flooding river, but she couldn't tell if it was thanks to Matthew or herself. She felt her hands shaking and hot tears welling up in her eyes. Without thinking, she grabbed the computer and smashed it onto the floor. She heard something inside it crack, and she tossed it away from her.

 _I hate him! I hate him so much! God, I wish I never met him!_

Crumpling to the cold stone floor, she curled up into a ball and sobbed.

* * *

When Sybil returned to the warehouse she found it locked up and all the lights inside shut off. She assumed Mary was back at the studio flat they were renting and decided to go back there too, texting Mary on her way to the Métro station.

 _U at the flat?_

She got the reply just before the train arrived.

 _Yes. Have a headache._

Sybil was half-certain Mary was lying about the headache, though when she opened the door to the flat she saw Mary curled up on the sofa-bed with her face partially covered by the duvet.

"You alright?" Sybil asked softly.

Mary grumbled in reply. Her eyes were shut but she was clearly awake.

"I got some food," Sybil said, walking into the tiny kitchen. "It was an absolute nightmare having to ask where the cereal was. I think I kept saying something else because the store clerk kept giving me a weird face. "

"You never did study French seriously," Mary mumbled. "Granny was quite disappointed in you."

"Mary, our teacher was so horrid. She drilled us on verb conjugations like a military general. Are you hungry at all?"

"Just leave me alone, thank you."

Sybil poked her head back into the main room, ignoring Mary's demand. "I got through to Sir Anthony Strallan."

"Hmm."

"He picked up fairly quickly. I asked him about the private plane, and I only had to do a little explaining to convince him. He said he'd arrange for a plane to be ready by tonight, at an airfield near de Gaulle Airport."

"Hmm."

"I'm leaving tomorrow morning," Sybil went on. "I'll fetch Tom and we'll both be back in a few days. You can count on me, Mary."

She went back into the kitchen and began putting the groceries away. "Did Matthew stay long?"

The pillow rustled as Mary shook her head. "He went home a few minutes after you left. I just stayed behind to do some work."

"How did you two get on after I left?"

It probably wasn't as innocent a question as Sybil had intended, and in any case Mary groaned in annoyance. "Sybil, I thought I told you to leave me alone."

"Alright, alright. I was just asking. Are you sure you don't need anything? I can go out and get some aspirin."

"Sybil, please …"

"Fine. Just sleep then. There's food in the kitchen when you want it."

Sybil stayed silent, and when she glanced at Mary a few minutes later she saw Mary fast asleep. She made herself some onion soup and ham and cheese on a baguette as she read a battered medical textbook. She would have done some more research on the computer, but it was nowhere to be found, and she didn't want to incite Mary's wrath by waking her up to ask about it. At least Mary had honored their agreement to sleep on the sofa-bed tonight; since there was only one queen-size bed in the flat they decided they'd swap between the bed and the sofa every night, since Mary would rather sleep on the roof than share a bed with Sybil.

It was almost eleven when Mary woke up, just as Sybil finished packing her suitcase. She lifted herself off the pillow, hair in a tangle, grumbling as she rolled off the sofa-bed and trudged to the bathroom. She emerged with combed hair and a damp face, watching Sybil roll her suitcase near the door.

"That for tomorrow?" she asked groggily.

"No, it's donations for the elves," Sybil snorted. "Of course it's for tomorrow, I'm leaving at six for the airfield."

"Right." Mary looked around, still in a half-asleep stupor. "I need something to eat, then I'm going back to sleep. I have to get to the warehouse early tomorrow."

"Does your head still hurt?"

"I'm fine."

"And where's the computer, by the way? Don't tell me you left it at the warehouse."

"It fell out of the bag in the Métro station and broke. So we need a new one."

"Brilliant," Sybil muttered as she climbed into bed. "Did the train run over the hard drive too?"

"Everything's backed up online, so nothing's lost." Mary opened the fridge and took out a bottle of Orangina.

"Do you need me to do anything while I'm gone?" Sybil asked. "More research?"

Mary shook her head as she took a swig of her drink. "Unless you happen to bump into Edith and convince her to come back too, there isn't anything you need to do."

"Alright. I'm going to sleep now. Good night."

Sybil was about to turn off the lamp by the bed and settle down when Mary spoke again.

"Just … don't get distracted. You need to get to Boston and bring Branson back as quickly as you can. That's all."

"I know that's what I have to do, and I will do it," Sybil insisted. "I won't be gone more than a couple of days. I promise."

"You'd better," Mary mumbled, loud enough for Sybil to hear and then roll her eyes at.

"Honestly Mary, I think I should be more concerned about being civil to Matthew for the next couple of days."

Mary gaped. "What do you mean by that?"

Sybil simply replied, "Good night." She turned off the lamp and wrapped the blankets around herself, ending all conversation for the night.

Mary's mouth hung open for a few seconds before scoffing and opening the cupboards, surveying what Sybil had bought. She wasn't all that hungry, but she had a bit of the leftover soup sitting on the stove, then climbed back onto the sofa-bed. She still felt incredibly groggy and was now actually trying to ignore a small ache above her brow, but she lay awake for a long time despite her weariness. It was the anxiety of waking up tomorrow and going back to the warehouse, seeing Matthew again and having to talk to and work with him, that kept her tossing and turning for a good hour.

Cursing herself for even considering bringing Matthew back into the team, Mary rolled over on her stomach, the springs of the sofa-bed creaking. How in God's name was she going to face the next few days alone with no one but Matthew? She would have borne Edith's company far better, or literally the company of anybody but Matthew. They had had their spat only a few minutes after Sybil left them alone, so how on earth were they going to deal with each other for the next few days. There was work to be done, and they couldn't avoid each other until Sybil got back with Tom.

As long as they never spoke of what happened in the past, perhaps she could bear it. As long as she kept her distance with him emotionally and he did the same, perhaps they would survive each other.

* * *

 _I know, a lot of angst and not enough action – but stick around for the next chapter and I know there will be some action scenes to come. Believe me, I don't want to see my own OTP arguing and being angsty, but for story purposes it's there._


End file.
